Overview

• A Defense Department letter to Congress frames cartel activity as a non‑international armed conflict and labels suspected smugglers unlawful combatants, asserting their actions constitute an armed attack on the United States.
• U.S. forces carried out at least three maritime strikes in the southern Caribbean in recent weeks that killed about 17 people, with the first targeting the Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua designated as a terrorist organization earlier this year.
• Venezuela accused the United States of flying five combat jets near its coast as Washington deployed F‑35s to Puerto Rico, highlighting rising regional tensions tied to the counternarcotics operations.
• Lawmakers and legal experts, including Senator Jack Reed and war‑law specialists Geoffrey S. Corn and Brian Finucane, dispute the legal basis for treating cartels as parties to armed conflict and question the absence of congressional authorization.
• Following combative speeches at Quantico, reports describe new Pentagon secrecy agreements with polygraph monitoring for thousands of staff and plans to reshape senior ranks, as Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth push cultural and personnel changes and float using U.S. cities as military training grounds.