https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/03/the-president-can-act-unilaterally-to-defend-america-abroad/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_
The Trump administration’s actions against the Houthis are legally grounded in the U.S. Constitution and fully permissible under international law.
While President Trump has made many legally controversial decisions during his first two months as president, his recent decision to order large-scale attacks on Houthi forces in Yemen is not one of them. To be sure, critics such as former congressman Justin Amash have argued that this attack requires prior congressional approval, and Iran has already called it a violation of the U.N. Charter. But most of Trump’s opponents are focusing their attacks elsewhere.
While Trump might be tempted therefore to simply ignore those critics, the Yemen crisis is a golden opportunity for his administration to advance and strengthen an important precedent in U.S. constitutional and international law that fits comfortably with his America First agenda. Where a foreign state is unwilling or unable to take appropriate action to stop attacks on U.S. maritime commerce, the president of the United States has the authority to attack that state, or the bad actors in that state, in retaliation for their attacks and to destroy their ability to conduct future attacks. It is not impossible that President Trump will soon face similar threats to U.S. maritime commerce in other strategic waterways such as the Persian Gulf or the Taiwan Strait, so it is crucial for the Trump administration to explain why its actions are legally grounded in the U.S. Constitution and fully permissible under international law in case it needs to take similar action to defend U.S maritime commerce in those, or other, crucial waterways.
First, even the strongest defenders of congressional supremacy in war powers have long endorsed the president’s inherent authority to use force to defend America abroad, whether or not Congress has authorized it. At the Constitutional Convention, James Madison’s notes indicated that the president should have the power to “repel sudden attacks.” This defensive power has evolved over the centuries to embrace repelling attacks on Americans, and Americans’ maritime commerce, outside the U.S. as well.