What political or drug cartel figures were removed by presidents using Executive Authority
Executive summary
Presidents have on occasion used executive authority—military force, covert operations, indictments, designations and removals—to target foreign political figures and alleged cartel leaders, but documented successful removals by U.S. presidents of sitting foreign heads of state or cartel bosses are rare; the clearest historical example is the 1989 ouster and capture of Panama’s Manuel Noriega under President George H. W. Bush, while more recent efforts involving Nicolás Maduro and cartel leaders under the Trump administration illustrate contested legal bases and mixed outcomes [1] [2] [3]. Constitutional and judicial doctrine frames a strong presidential removal power over U.S. executive officers, but that authority is distinct from—and legally constrained when applied to—foreign leaders or criminal organizations abroad [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. The clearest precedent: Manuel Noriega removed and brought to the U.S.
The United States under President George H. W. Bush effectively removed Panama’s de facto ruler, Gen. Manuel Noriega, in 1989 through a military intervention that culminated in his capture and transfer to U.S. custody to face drug-trafficking charges—a case contemporaneous DOJ memos argued could be justified by presidential authority to order arrests that violate U.S. law even if the actions raise international-law concerns [1].
2. Indictments and legal tools as a form of removal-by-law: the Maduro prosecutions
The Trump administration pursued criminal indictments and public designations of Nicolás Maduro and several Venezuelan officials as narco-traffickers and criminal conspirators—measures intended to delegitimize and facilitate removal or arrest—but those steps have not produced a U.S.-effected ouster of Maduro, and the Justice Department later pared back some problematic allegations (notably retreating from asserting a formal “Cartel de los Soles” organization) when challenged in court and reporting, illustrating the limits and political uses of legal tools as quasi-executive removal mechanisms [2] [3].
3. Military, covert and kinetic options against cartel leaders: rhetoric, directives, and limited strikes
In the 2020s the Trump administration signaled and executed an escalation against transnational criminal organizations—issuing directives to target cartels, conducting maritime strikes on suspected drug vessels, and publicly floating land strikes—actions presented as executive authority to confront imminent threats but raising questions about sovereignty, War Powers limits and operational prudence; commentators warn such militarized approaches risk repeating counterterrorism-era mistakes even as policymakers point to exigent-authority rationales [8] [9] [10].
4. The domestic removal power: what presidents can do inside the executive branch
Scholarly and judicial sources document a broad presidential power to remove executive officers to ensure “faithful execution” of the laws, a power historically exercised by early presidents and affirmed in modern Supreme Court doctrine (with notable limits where Congress protects independent agencies), which undergirds a president’s authority to discipline or replace subordinates but does not by itself authorize extraterritorial seizures of foreign leaders or cartel bosses without other legal bases [4] [5] [6] [7] [11].
5. Political motives, legal fragility and the difference between rhetoric and removal
Efforts to “remove” foreign political or cartel figures often mix law enforcement, diplomacy, and political messaging: indictments and designations can freeze assets and restrict travel but stop short of physical removal absent capture or consent, while military or covert attempts (such as mercenary incursions connected to plots against Maduro) can fail or backfire—demonstrating both the political incentives to portray action as decisive and the legal, operational, and reputational constraints on actual removal [2] [3] [1].
6. Emerging proposals and the shifting legal landscape
Recent legislative and executive maneuvers—like proposals to authorize letters of marque against cartels or executive directives classifying cartels as national-security threats—signal a political push to expand presidential levers against transnational criminal groups, but they also underscore a contested debate over separation of powers, War Powers Act limitations, and international law that scholars and critics say could open new routes for presidential removal-like actions while raising grave legal questions [12] [10] [13].