Trump Says He’s ‘Just Going to Kill People’ Who Are Allegedly Trafficking Drugs Abroad: ‘They’re Going to Be, Like, Dead’

President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration will expand operations against drug cartels to include land-based strikes, asserting that prior actions have sharply reduced maritime drug flows into the United States.

Speaking to reporters on Oct. 23, Trump claimed that efforts to interdict illegal shipments by sea had reduced those imports to “less than 5%” of previous levels. He said the next focus would be on drugs entering over land and suggested he would inform Congress of the plan while indicating he did not expect opposition.

“The land is going to be next,” Trump said. “And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the, you know, Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they would have any problem with it. I think, in fact, while we’re here, if you go to Congress and you tell them about it, what are they going to do? Say, ‘We don’t want to stop drugs pouring in.’ ”

When a reporter asked whether he would seek a formal declaration of war from Congress, Trump replied that he did not intend to do so and used blunt language about using lethal force against people he said were transporting drugs into the country.

U.S. forces have carried out a series of deadly strikes on vessels suspected of carrying narcotics, with media reports stating multiple attacks resulted in dozens of fatalities. Legal analysts have questioned whether the president can authorize such strikes unilaterally, noting that the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war and serves as a check on the president’s authority as commander in chief.

Officials have also faced scrutiny over evidence linking some of the people killed in the strikes to trafficking. Relatives and foreign leaders have disputed official accounts in at least one case: the family of Alejandro Carranza, killed while at sea, and Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Carranza was a fisherman and had been signaling distress at the time of the attack.

According to reports, Department of Justice officials drafted a classified memo asserting a legal rationale for the strikes, arguing that the president may authorize deadly force against certain cartel actors on the basis that they pose an imminent threat to Americans.

Questions about constitutional authority, the sufficiency of evidence in specific incidents, and the international ramifications of expanded operations on foreign soil remain central to the debate as the administration moves forward with its stated plan.