President Donald Trump's aggressive campaign against drug trafficking marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy that may be effective in the short term but requires clearer legal authority and a defined endgame, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Newsmax on Sunday.
Trump's use of military force against drug boats and traffickers in the Caribbean and South American waters also goes far beyond traditional law enforcement methods, Hutchinson, who served as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration under President George W. Bush, said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report."
"When I was head of the DEA, we had fast boats," he said. "We worked with the military, but it was always a law enforcement response and a criminal prosecution that would result.
"Now we've shifted it from simply a criminal prosecution to a military action to kill the drug traffickers, and so that is a big shift."
Trump has ordered maritime strikes since September.
Hutchinson said those actions underscore the administration's message that the U.S. is no longer treating international cartels as conventional criminals.
"The legal basis would be that he's declared these as international terrorist organizations and that they're a threat to our national security," Hutchinson said. "This has traditionally been a law enforcement role."
While he applauded the renewed focus on drug interdiction, comparing it to the Reagan and Bush administrations' efforts, Hutchinson said Congress must review the scope and legality of the operations.
"I think the questions Congress has would be, where's the legal authority? Let's make sure there's transparency and information that they have to review," he said.
The former governor acknowledged that visible force has a deterrent effect, particularly when traffickers see their vessels destroyed, but cautioned that cartels often find new routes and methods.
"Anytime you see fast boats being blown up, people being killed, it's going to be harder for them to direct it in that same way," he said. "Now they're resourceful and they shift, and the fact is, two-thirds of our drugs come across the land border with Mexico into the United States."
Hutchinson said the cartels' operations stretch beyond Mexico, involving networks across Central America and inside the U.S.
The challenge, he said, is whether Trump's military approach will remain narrowly focused or expand into broader geopolitical aims.
"We have to wait and see what President Trump's endgame is here," he said. "Is he simply targeting Venezuela and President [Nicolas] Maduro that he wants to get rid of? Or is it going to be a broad-based effort for the other drug trafficking organizations that impact us from countries like Mexico and Central America?"
Hutchinson said Maduro is an "illegitimate president" who benefits from narcotics traffickers operating in his country and said he hopes Maduro's tenure "is short-lived."
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