Trump’s total disdain for international trade law, law generally and now international law of the sea, law of war and domestic law concerning the U.S. military and assassinations is glaringly highlighted — by his blowing up a motorboat on the high seas and killing all aboard. You can detain them and the boat if in U.S. territorial waters and perhaps arrest them. You just cannot blow up a boat on the high seas and kill them. It’s that simple. Period. Where were the Defense Dept. lawyers? Really an abuse of executive authority. This was not self-defense and there is no declared war. If Trump can’t respect this very basic set of rules, what is the hope of him respecting U.S. law and our international agreements? None.

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“By ordering the U.S. military to summarily kill a group of people aboard what he said was a drug-smuggling boat, Trump used the military in a way that had no clear legal precedent or basis, according to specialists in the laws of war and executive power …. That raises the question of whether Trump has legitimate authority to tell the military to summarily kill people it suspects are smuggling drugs — and whether the administration allowed career military lawyers to weigh in. It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted …. As a matter of domestic law, a longstanding executive order bars assassinations, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice bars service members from committing unlawful killings. As a matter of international law, the Pentagon has accepted that “murder” is prohibited everywhere.” ”Killing on the High Seas.” New York Times (Sept. 5, 2025).