Despite his second-term pledge to end America’s involvement in costly and destructive foreign wars, President Donald Trump has launched a full-scale offensive to overthrow the Iranian government just over a year after taking office.
The attack on Iran, considered a violation of international law, marks President Trump’s most aggressive escalation yet in using military force to attack foreign governments and extract concessions his administration demands.
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Despite widespread skepticism among the American public about President Trump’s military actions overseas, the Trump administration has carried out reckless attacks against the governments of Iran and Venezuela, while increasing U.S. aggression in Africa and the Middle East in the name of counterterrorism.
Let’s take a quick look at President Trump’s overseas military actions since returning to office in January 2025.
Iran
The joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran, which began Saturday morning Tehran time, has so far killed at least 201 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, and has fueled fears of an escalation of the war that could bring chaos and destruction to countries in the region.
The US attack, which President Trump described as a “massive combat operation” aimed at overthrowing the regime in Tehran, appears to be much larger than the previous US attack on Iran in June 2025.
These attacks, like the current ones, took place while Iran was in diplomatic talks with the United States and targeted Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
President Trump said the attack, which occurred during Israel’s 12-day war against Iran that killed more than 600 Iranians, had “annihilated” the country’s nuclear capabilities.
All US attacks on Iran are considered illegal under international law.
Venezuela
The Trump administration carried out an attack on Venezuela in January 2026, bombing the capital Caracas and abducting President Nicolas Maduro, who had long drawn the ire of the United States.
Venezuela’s defense minister announced that 83 people were killed in the attack, including Venezuelan and Cuban security officials and Venezuelan civilians.
Boat strike in Latin America
Since September, the United States has launched at least 45 airstrikes on suspected drug-trafficking ships in Latin America and the Caribbean, killing at least 151 people, according to a tally by the watchdog group Air Wars.
President Trump and his allies framed the strikes as an effort to combat drug trafficking in the region, which they say amounts to an armed attack on the United States and has labeled several criminal organizations foreign terrorist organizations.
United Nations officials and international law experts have flatly rejected these claims, calling the attack an illegal extrajudicial killing operation that erases the distinction between criminal activity and armed conflict.
Nigeria
The Trump administration has also stepped up military operations in Africa, expanded cooperation with local governments, and conducted airstrikes in the name of counterterrorism.
In Nigeria, President Trump has carried out a series of attacks, sent 100 U.S. military personnel to train Nigeria’s military, and has threatened a U.S. attack if the government does not address what Trump claims is a “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria by Muslim groups.
Nigerian officials say the claims, which have been largely debunked, incorrectly cast the widespread and violent civil war that has plagued the country for years as a case of anti-Christian persecution.
President Trump announced that the United States, with government assistance, carried out a “robust and deadly” attack targeting suspected members of the Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate in northwestern Nigeria in December 2025.
Questions have arisen as to whether the targets attacked were actually affiliated with ISIL. It is not known whether ISIL is active in the area targeted by the attack.
Somalia
The Trump administration has expanded U.S. military involvement in Somalia, where the U.S. has long worked with the government to counter armed groups such as al-Shabab and the regional offshoot of ISIL.
The United States has significantly stepped up its airstrikes on Somalia during President Trump’s second term, with the New America Foundation revealing that the United States conducted at least 111 attacks in 2025. That number exceeds attacks under the George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden administrations combined, the monitors said.
yemen
The United States launched dozens of sea and air strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels between March and May 2025, destroying infrastructure and killing dozens of civilians.
The Houthis had been attacking ships passing through the Red Sea as a form of pressure on Israel to end its genocidal war in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch said in June that a U.S. attack on the country’s Ras Isa port in Hodeidah in April 2025, which killed more than 80 civilians, should be investigated as a war crime.
An Omani-brokered ceasefire was announced in May.
Syria
The United States launched strikes against ISIL targets in Syria in December 2025, following an attack that killed two American soldiers and an interpreter in the city of Parimra.
President Trump said the United States was “taking very serious retaliation” against those responsible for the attack, which the Syrian government said was carried out by members of its national security services who were due to be expelled for their hard-line views.
Iraq
In March 2025, the United States killed a prominent ISIL commander in an attack in Iraq’s al-Anbar province.
The group’s second-in-command, Abdallah “Abu Khadijah” Marri Musri al-Rifai, and another unnamed operative were reportedly killed in the airstrike.
“His tragic life was ended along with another ISIS member in coordination with the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government,” President Trump said in a social media post at the time. “Peace through power!”
