Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday that earlier in the day, on President Trump’s orders, he directed U.S. forces stationed in the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea to fire a missile at a boat suspected of carrying “substantial amounts” of illegal narcotics.

The strike destroyed the vessel as it traveled in international waters “just off the coast of Venezuela,” Hegseth said, according to the Washington Post. It is believed that four people on the boat were killed in the attack.

The secretary did not provide details about the alleged affiliation of the four dead with any particular nation or drug cartel, nor did he say what type of drugs the vessel was transporting. The Post reports that he simply claimed that U.S. intelligence agents had identified them as trafficking in illegal narcotics “without a doubt.”

The marks the fourth U.S. missile strike on suspected narcotics shipments by sea since September 2. The death toll is now 21.

The president has not sought congressional authorization for the use of military force. Despite the commitment of war authorization power to Congress in Article I of the Constitution, Trump appears to be claiming inherent authority under Article II to employ lethal force against any vessel in international waters that he suspects of ferrying illegal drugs to the United States. Although drug importation is a crime under federal law, the president seems to view it as an act of war analogous to an attempt by a hostile foreign force to fire a missile into, or prepare to deploy a bomb in, the United States.

I detailed last night the Trump administration’s notification to Congress that the U.S. armed forces are engaged in armed hostilities against what the administration claims are nonstate actors in a noninternational conflict. I discussed some of the problems I see with that framing of the situation earlier today.