{"id":348,"date":"2026-06-04T23:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T23:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=348"},"modified":"2026-06-04T23:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T23:13:17","slug":"trump-thinks-his-administration-is-like-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Trump Thinks His Administration Is \u2018Like Pirates\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

Read more Has Graham Platner Changed Enough?<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. Navy was born to fight piracy. After the Revolutionary War, the United States maintained no standing fleet, but attacks by the Barbary pirates\u2014corsairs based in North Africa who preyed on American merchant ships and took sailors ransom\u2014drove Congress to reestablish a navy in the 1790s. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson dispatched ships to the Mediterranean to fight the pirates, and the successful war that followed proved a template for American interventions for centuries: The U.S. showed it was willing to use military force to defend American commercial interests and to punish bad international actors.<\/p>\n

Trump has already rejected much of this vision of American foreign policy, a point he demonstrated vividly last month by approvingly likening the U.S. Navy to pirates while describing an interdiction in the Persian Gulf. \u201cWe took over the cargo, took over the oil. It\u2019s a very profitable business. Who would have thought we were doing that?\u201d the president said in West Palm Beach, Florida. \u201cWe\u2019re like pirates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps a man as enthralled by gold as Trump was bound to find a natural affinity with pirates. In fact, the Trump administration is taking a buccaneering attitude around the globe\u2014not just in the actions in the Middle East that Trump described. The U.S. continues to blow up boats, including one yesterday, in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean without any due process or basis in law. And in Washington, a prominent senator has proposed that the U.S. government commission privateers\u2014basically, government-licensed pirates\u2014to battle narco-traffickers.<\/p>\n

Since the start, the strikes have been a lawless operation. Few legal experts believe there is any justification for them. The Trump administration claims that those targeted are drug smugglers but has presented no evidence for this. Surely, some of them are, though reliable reporting suggests that others are not. Even if the administration had evidence of drug smuggling, that is not the same thing as a conviction; and even if these people had a conviction, federal law does not establish capital punishment for drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

The attacks received lots of attention when they began, much of it negative, and a few outlets (especially those based overseas) have stayed focused on covering them. But the attention of the public and, especially, Congress has moved on: There are flailing wars and cartoonish corruption going on. Meanwhile, the strikes have actually accelerated. Like the pirates of the golden age, the U.S. military is functioning as an unseen menace, dealing death with no warning or recourse. More than 200 people have been killed in the strikes, but as The New York Times <\/i>reported a few days ago, the campaign has made no dent in the cocaine trade to the United States.<\/p>\n

Senator Mike Lee would rather this work be done by private individuals. The Utahn introduced a bill in December that would authorize the president to issue letters of marque, a tool by which the government licenses private individuals to attack foreign interests by seizing ships, as a way of taking on drug traffickers. The Constitution does specifically grant Congress the power to issue letters of marque, though they were effectively in 1856. The wisdom of encouraging private Americans to get into armed battles with cartels is certainly debatable, and the Senate has not advanced the bill.<\/p>\n

In the absence of privateers, Trump seems to enjoy the idea of the U.S. military acting as outlaws on the seas. During his protracted attempt to figure out what he wants and what he can get out of the war in Iran, Trump announced a full blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. As Lawfare<\/i>\u2019s Todd Huntley writes, a full blockade would be a violation of international law, though that\u2019s not actually what the U.S. is doing. (One sometimes gets the sense that Trump uses maximalist language without knowing or caring what it means, simply because it sounds cool to him; he also futilely called for Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender.\u201d)<\/p>\n

No one disputes that the Iranian government is acting illegally in the strait. Under international law, the Strait of Hormuz is open to navigation, but Iran has mined the strait and allowed only certain vessels to pass through it, attacking others. The question is what the United States can do in response. (Complicating the matter is the fact that Iran closed the strait after Trump launched a war that is dubious under international law and unauthorized by Congress.) The traditional\u2014and responsible\u2014role for the United States, in the lineage of fighting the Barbary pirates, would be to defend the international norm of free navigation and push to reopen the strait.<\/p>\n

Read more California Democrats Avoided the Worst-Case Scenario<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump has been willing to mouth these words. Visiting China last month, he said he raised the issue with Xi Jinping, but Trump did not make it a major focus and received no commitments from Xi. What seems to really excite Trump is not freedom of navigation but financial gain. As his remarks in West Palm Beach indicated, Trump is taken with the idea of seizing ships and selling their cargoes. He had the same impulse with oil tankers carrying Venezuelan oil, which the U.S. seized this winter. The problem is that, as with many of Trump\u2019s past schemes to make money, this one is a mess in practice. As The New York Times <\/i>reported in March, maintaining just one seized oil tanker had cost $47 million.<\/p>\n

Perversely, Trump\u2019s war in Iran has driven up the price of oil, so the cargo on board is more valuable. Still, seizing ships doesn\u2019t seem like a very effective way to fill the Treasury\u2019s coffers, and embracing freebooting carries risks besides financial ones. Free and peaceful navigation have enabled the prosperity of the United States and much of the world. No child, or reader of Robert Louis Stevenson, can deny the allure of pirates, but the marauders are rarely the good guys in the story.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/b><\/p>\n

\n