(Adds quotes from Hegseth interview, Trump quote and context in paragraphs 3 through 8) Oct 5 (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he has every authorization needed for strikes in the Caribbean by the U.S. military against vessels allegedly carrying illegal drugs just off the coast of Venezuela. Hegseth was speaking in a Fox News interview broadcast on Sunday. The United States killed four people in a strike on Friday, at least the fourth such attack in recent weeks. "We have every authorization needed. These are designated as foreign terrorist organizations," Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News' "The Sunday Briefing." Hegseth and President Donald Trump have not provided evidence for claims that the targeted boats were carrying drugs. Trump told Congress last week that he had determined the U.S. to be in "a non-international armed conflict" with drug cartels, without providing any new legal rationale. Critics say the boat strikes are a further effort by Trump to test the scope of his presidential powers. Legal experts have questioned why the military is carrying out these attacks rather than the U.S. Coast Guard, the country's maritime law agency. "If you're in our hemisphere, if you're in the Caribbean, if you're north of Venezuela and you want to traffic drugs to the United States, you are a legitimate target of the United States military," Hegseth said. Trump on Sunday said the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean had halted drug trafficking from South America. "There's no drugs coming into the water. And we'll look at what phase 2 is," he told reporters at the White House. (Reporting by Jasper Ward, Leah Douglas and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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