Militarised punishment: the Trump administration’s escalation of the U.S. war on drugs

Abstract

How did the United States (U.S.) under President Donald Trump (2017–2021) justify and escalate the militarization of U.S. drug policy? Focusing on Trump’s first term as President, this article argues that Trump’s war on drugs reinforced punitive approaches by fusing narcotics enforcement with racialized governance, border securitization and geopolitical coercion. By framing drug-related crime as an existential threat, his administration scapegoated marginalized communities while expanding policing, incarceration, and militarized counternarcotics operations. Building on existing scholarship, this study examines three key dimensions of Trump’s drug war: (1) ideational – how dehumanizing rhetoric legitimized punitive measures; (2) material – how law enforcement incentives and private interests entrenched state violence; and (3) international – how U.S. counternarcotics policy exported militarized governance to the Global South. Tracing the historical trajectory of U.S. drug enforcement, this article reveals how Trump’s policies deepened the war on drugs as a tool of state violence and global hegemonic control. It advances debates by foregrounding the material and ideological foundations of state violence in drug enforcement, challenging the focus on institutional structures. It highlights the agency of Global South leaders in sustaining militarized drug policies and demonstrates how Trump’s war on drugs functioned as a domestic tool of racialized control and an instrument of U.S. imperial power through transnational counternarcotics operations.