In January, American forces seized then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his compound in Venezuela in a dramatic overnight raid to face criminal charges in New York, and
assigned Maduro’s then VP as acting President as long as she’s friendly to the US. The Trump administration relies on her
transitional leadership with the expectation that she opens the country's petroleum reserves to U.S. investment and business interests.

Trump
told The Atlantic that
Rodriguez could face a fate similar to Maduro, who is being detained in federal prison in New York on narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges,
if she doesn’t align with U.S. interests.
Anyway, the US military has killed the leader of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in an airstrike, President Donald Trump announced on social media. "
At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero," Trump wrote.
I wonder how many airstrikes Trump has authorized “inside” the United States itself against criminals or what have you?
The U.S. Constitution guarantees that individuals accused of crimes—even gang members or cartel operatives—have a right to a trial. Airstrikes inherently constitute summary, extrajudicial executions, but that’s neither here nor there.
Trump posted footage of what appears to be the airstrike, showing a green building with a nearby shed being blown up, debris flying into the air. Trump said the military action was "
coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well".
Under the Trump administration, US forces have launched dozens of strikes on boats they say are part of a large-scale operation to ferry drugs into the US, including those it claims are linked to Tren de Aragua.
More than 200 people have been killed in strikes since September, according to US media.
But the military has not provided evidence that the attacked boats were carrying drugs or drug smugglers, sparking criticism of the operation and questions around its legality.
Instead of military bombings, domestic gangs (like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua operatives inside the U.S.) are handled via specialized law enforcement. The Trump administration operates the
Homeland Security Task Force, a domestic and transnational criminal campaign that works alongside the Department of Justice, the FBI, and local police. Their strategy involves intelligence gathering, criminal indictments, asset seizures, and traditional tactical arrests—not military warfare.
The Trump administration has ‘expanded’ definitions of terrorism to label foreign cartels as enemy combatants, resulting in unilateral operations such as a Jan. 2026 military strike in Venezuela, and this strike targeting the leader of the Tren de Aragua gang in the Western Hemisphere.
Federal law, specifically Executive Order 12333, explicitly bans government-sanctioned assassinations. This ban can only be bypassed abroad under highly specific parameters of armed conflict or immediate foreign self-defense, which do not apply to domestic law enforcement.
en.wikipedia.org
The Trump administration has said the killings are lawful. In a statement to Congress last year, the White House said US President
Donald Trump had "determined" that the US was in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that crews of drug-running boats were "combatants".
President Trump does not believe he requires Congressional approval to continue military actions against cartels past 60 days. His administration has maintained that the War Powers Resolution is not legally binding for these operations, and the Department of Justice has advised that the executive branch has inherent constitutional authority to act against these groups.
Niño Guerrero was killed in a "swift and lethal kinetic strike," the US President wrote in a social media post.
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