Among the most important shifts in Trump 2.0 is a multipronged effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to equate its war on drugs with the war on terror.

Cartels have been labeled as terror organizations.

Alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have been vaporized by a US military that honed its craft taking out suspected terrorists in the Middle East and Africa.

Now, illegal fentanyl is being labeled by the Trump administration as a weapon of mass destruction, a phrase that simultaneously:

► describes how any American touched by overdose may feel about opioids

► is a technical term in US and international law

► is guaranteed to trigger bad memories for those who recall the run-up to the war in Iraq

Then-President George W. Bush’s administration used flawed allegations about weapons of mass destruction and the threat of terrorism from Iraq to justify toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein in the period after the 9/11 terror attacks and before the 2002 midterm elections.

Bush promised at the United Nations that Iraq had become an “arsenal of terror,” but the weapons of mass destruction were never found.

Trump isn’t bothering to try to build an international coalition for his military strikes, but he is borrowing fears of weapons of mass destruction, applying it to drugs Americans buy illegally rather than devices or chemicals intentionally used against soldiers or civilians.

“No bomb does what this is doing — 200,000 to 300,000 people die every year that we know of,” Trump said Monday at the White House, fantastically overstating recent overdose figures. He was surrounded by members of the military who received awards for deployments to the US southern border, another reminder of his posture that the US is a country at war.

The executive order Trump signed describes fentanyl as “closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.”

Notably, the boats struck in the Caribbean, including the one where two people who survived an initial strike were controversially killed in a follow-up attack, were alleged to have been carrying cocaine, although no evidence has been publicly provided.

Trump’s order cites criminal law and national security law that would seem to allow the Department of Justice to work in tandem with the Pentagon when law enforcement is overwhelmed.

Reading that makes one wonder if the weapons of mass destruction declaration could be used to justify the deployment of the military inside the US to fight the drug war. One war powers expert I talked to said prohibitions on the domestic use of the military should still apply.

“The type of threat the law contemplates is too immediate and specific to be addressed through a presidential declaration,” Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told me in an email.

The order also suggests using resources intended to combat weapons of mass destruction to gather intelligence on fentanyl.

Use of weapons of mass destruction is punishable by death under the 1994 crime bill, coincidentally authored by then-Sen. Joe Biden. But a key feature of Trump’s efforts against alleged drug boats is that they are being conducted extrajudicially, or outside of US and international law.

Here’s how US law defines weapons of mass destruction:

(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title (bombs, grenades or missiles, etc.);

(B) poison gas;

(C) any weapon involving a disease organism; or

(D) any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life.

On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom the Trump administration has rebranded as “secretary of war,” translated for reporters why it is important to use the military to go after alleged drug boats hundreds of miles away in the Caribbean.

“We’ve had on a highly successful mission to counter designated terrorist organizations — cartels, bringing weapons, weapons meaning drugs to the American people and poisoning the American people for far too long,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth was criticized by Democrats for refusing to bring to Tuesday’s briefing video of the controversial second strike on an alleged drug boat in September. Legal experts have suggested that strike could be in violation of US criminal law, in part because Congress never authorized the strikes.

While Monday’s “weapon of mass destruction” designation may have been jarring to some, it’s an idea that has history. As the fentanyl crisis was building during Trump’s first term, the website Task and Purpose reported on a Department of Homeland Security memo suggesting the classification. During Biden’s presidency, there was pressure from Republican lawmakers across the country to declare fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

While Bush relied on the allegation of weapons of mass destruction to topple Hussein, the Trump administration wants to see the toppling of Venezuela’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is not thought to be a major source of drugs in the US. Fentanyl is frequently manufactured inside US borders or seized at the southwestern border with Mexico.

In addition to striking at alleged drug boats, the Trump administration has amassed an arsenal of US military power in the Caribbean. War hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham, normally a vocal Trump supporter, argue that anything short of Venezuela regime change will make the US look weak. Graham said Tuesday he does not think the US has a plan for what happens after a Maduro ouster.

“You got 15% of the Navy pointed at this guy,” Graham told reporters. “If he is still standing when this is over, this is a fatal major mistake to our standing in the world,” Graham said. “That’s the worst possible signal you could send to Russia, China, Iran.”

Also critical was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from the opposite end of the political spectrum as Graham.

While Graham wants the administration to come clean about its intentions for Venezuela if this is all part of an effort to topple Maduro, Ocasio-Cortez wants the administration to seek approval for its actions in Congress.

Bush, unlike Trump, did seek congressional approval to invade Iraq. While Trump has not said US troops will be used against Venezuela, he has suggested the US could soon start striking on land.

For all the echoes of the Iraq war run-up, including in the new use of the term “weapons of mass destruction,” Trump is doing things much differently than Bush. There is no international coalition. There is no congressional approval. There is less public backing.

When Bush made his arguments for invading in the fall of 2002, half of Americans supported the idea. Bush’s Republicans also bucked the historical trend and picked up House seats in midterms that year.

Less than a quarter of Americans today say the administration has adequately explained potential military action in Venezuela, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted in November.

More than half, on the other hand, supported using military force to stop drug boats, which might have everything to do with why the Trump administration wants Americans to view drugs as weapons of mass destruction.