Rand Paul Criticizes Trump’s Strike on Venezuelan Cartel, Warns of “Dangerous Precedent”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has voiced unease with President Donald Trump’s decisive military strike against Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua drug cartel, raising constitutional and legal concerns even as many conservatives applaud the operation as a bold step against narcoterrorism.

On Tuesday, President Trump ordered U.S. forces to target a vessel carrying suspected cartel members, resulting in the deaths of 11 criminals tied to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. The President hailed the action as a precision strike on “narcoterrorists,” underscoring his commitment to dismantling the transnational drug networks that have poured poison into American communities.

Yet in an interview Wednesday on Newsmax, Paul struck a different tone, warning that the move could blur lines between military action and law enforcement.

“It’s hard to have any sympathy for drug dealers trying to import product into our country,” Paul said. “But at the same time, I guess, you might ask the question, ‘Where does it end? Are we the world’s policemen?’”

The Kentucky Republican suggested that, had the same vessel been intercepted near Miami, the suspects would have been arrested rather than killed.

“We all assume these people were bad people and drug dealers, but if they were caught off the coast of Miami, we would stop the boat,” he explained. “If they don’t shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them. They’re confiscated; they’re put in jail.”

Paul cautioned against preemptive strikes without trial, insisting that America’s justice system was built on due process. He warned that mistaken identity could one day result in innocent Venezuelans fleeing Maduro’s regime being wrongly destroyed at sea.

“I think probably that we had the facts correct, we got bad people here,” Paul admitted. “But … it isn’t our policy just to blow people up.”

While Paul emphasized that even “the worst people in our country” deserve their day in court, the administration has defended the action as both lawful and necessary.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio strongly rejected Paul’s warnings, arguing that decades of simply intercepting and seizing cartel boats has proven ineffective.

“It doesn’t work,” Rubio declared, pledging that operations like Tuesday’s strike “will happen again.”

Rubio underscored that cartels tied to Maduro function as foreign terrorist organizations, and that President Trump is determined to use America’s full military power to end their smuggling empire.

Newsmax host Rob Schmitt echoed that sentiment during Paul’s appearance, calling the strike “a brilliant deterrent.”

“If we’re at war, you know, we blow up bad guys all the time,” Schmitt told Paul. “I think they’re saying that it’s a war.”

Paul, however, pushed back.

“In our country, war is the exception. So when we have a war, it was intended that we would declare a war, there would be a big vote of our Congress,” he said. “It’s a little harder here because this is a crime and this is a criminal syndicate…Sometimes you have to figure out who people are before you kill them.”