Paris, 10 December 2025. The escalation of hostility by the United States against countries in Latin America and the Caribbean has exceeded the bounds of diplomacy and international law. Since August 2025, the U.S. Navy has established a significant military presence in the southern Caribbean Sea, deploying naval and air units, including the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford—the largest in the U.S.
This mobilisation represents the greatest display of U.S. military power in Latin America in decades, carried out under the pretext of a supposed anti-drug operation. United Nations expert rapporteurs have denounced that, in 21 of the attacks claimed by the U.S. government in this context, over 80 civilians have been killed, constituting serious violations of the right to life and international maritime law and therefore, they stated: "those responsible for ordering and carrying out these extrajudicial killings must be investigated and prosecuted for homicide."
The indiscriminate attacks on vessels constitute an illegitimate and illegal use of force, as well as a flagrant violation of the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, and precaution. These actions breach fundamental norms of international law, including the obligation to guarantee rights such as life, personal integrity, due process, and judicial guarantees, thus qualifying them as extrajudicial executions.
The U.S. government’s instrumentalisation of the "fight against drugs" to justify unilateral actions with clear political intent and the disproportionate use of force sets a dangerous precedent that demands a strong response from the international community. The erosion of the democratic system and human rights violations that have been documented in Venezuela by the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in multiple reports, and which have been highlighted by the FIDH, do not authorise any State to intervene as the United States is doing, in contravention of international law. In doing so, it violates the central right on which the architecture of the world order is based, which is the self-determination of peoples.
In the face of this escalation of violence and tension in the region, the OAS has a political and legal duty to provide a collective response in accordance with international law to the latent threat to sovereignty posed by the actions of the Donald Trump administration. This response must ensure "the defense of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence" as stated in Article 1 of the OAS Charter.
Likewise, the U.S. government must immediately cease all threatening acts, economic or political coercion, and interference that restrict the autonomy of Latin American peoples. The United States must urgently reconsider its global strategy on the drug issue, recognising the failure of militaristic and security-focused approaches. These policies have not only led to serious human rights violations against the civilian population but have also deepened poverty, inequality, and the systematic criminalisation of Latin American peoples.