The Trump administration has designated Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. Experts say this is not a real cartel.
President Trump is open to dialogue with President Maduro amid tensions in Venezuela
President Donald Trump says he is open to dialogue with President Nicolas Maduro amid rising tensions with Venezuela.
On November 24, the Trump administration designated the Cartel de los Soles, which Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro claims is led, as a foreign terrorist organization after it threatened to launch a military attack within Venezuela’s borders.
In recent months, President Donald Trump and his Cabinet have renewed a pressure campaign to remove Maduro, his longtime opponent, from power. The Trump administration’s tough stance against Maduro has been reinforced by a major military buildup near Venezuela and deadly attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed dozens of people.
Mr. Maduro and his associates already face criminal charges of “narcoterrorism” in U.S. courts, and the Cartel de los Soles faces heavy sanctions.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a Nov. 21 interview that the foreign terrorist organization designation, also known as an FTO, “gives the Pentagon more tools” and “gives President Trump options” to deal with cartels.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on the X Show that the Cartel de los Soles, “led by the illegitimate Nicolas Maduro,” “corrupts Venezuela’s government institutions and is responsible for terrorist violence and drug trafficking.”
But experts said the designation was not a military measure and that the organization it targeted, Cartel de los Soles, did not exist as an organized drug cartel.
Venezuela contributes little to the flow of drugs into the United States, accounting for only a small portion of the cocaine. The State Department said it is not an ingredient in fentanyl, a drug that is produced primarily in Mexico and is responsible for most overdose deaths.
US military assets converge on Venezuela
The United States has been sending some of its most advanced military assets to the region for months, including its largest aircraft carrier, two guided missile destroyers and a special operations ship. Approximately 12,000 troops are stationed in the area.
Amid mounting pressure, U.S. bombers have repeatedly avoided Venezuelan airspace, most recently on Nov. 21, when a swarm of aircraft, including B-52 bombers and F/A-18 fighters, flew close to the coastline. Speculation that a strike was imminent increased on the same day that the Federal Aviation Administration notified major U.S. airlines to avoid Venezuelan airspace due to the “deteriorating military situation and increased military activity.”
Reuters reported on November 22 that the United States will soon launch a new phase of military operations against Venezuela, starting with covert operations. In an unusual move, President Trump announced in October that he was allowing the CIA to operate in Venezuela.
However, there may still be room for relaxation. Axios reported on November 24 that President Trump had told his advisers that he intended to speak directly to the Venezuelan leader even after ending negotiations with the Maduro government months earlier through special envoy Richard Grenell.
Since early September, the Trump administration has bombed at least 21 boats in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing 83 people, many of them Venezuelan.
Trump officials said, without providing evidence, that the ships were attempting to transport drugs to the United States. President Trump has tried to justify the attack by telling some lawmakers that the country is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
FTO designation does not give a green light for military action.
Experts say the designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization is a new move that will increase pressure on President Maduro, but does not give President Trump further justification for domestic attacks.
Nathan Sale, a former State Department counterterrorism coordinator and special envoy during Trump’s first term, said the FTO designation is a “nuclear bomb” of sanctions. “Designated FTOs will be expelled from the U.S. financial system,” he said.
There are also secondary effects, meaning that companies that do business with designated FTOs may face criminal charges or sanctions themselves.
But Sales said the designation does not authorize military force. He said the administration could introduce these elements alongside other elements of the pressure campaign, but they would be parallel to military action.
Mike Vigil, who retired after 30 years as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the designation would allow the administration to seize U.S. bank accounts associated with the organizations, sanction U.S. citizens who provide material support and allow the federal government to “take steps to prevent members of these organizations from entering the United States.”
Experts say Cartel de los Soles does not exist
Allegations of drug trafficking and corruption have been leveled against Maduro and his inner circle for years. In 2020, during President Trump’s first term, President Maduro and several top officials and military generals were indicted on charges of narcoterrorism and collaborating with Colombia’s leftist guerrilla group FARC to “flood” the United States with cocaine.
In July, the Trump administration imposed sanctions against the Cartel de los Soles, defined as a “Venezuela-based criminal organization led by Nicolás Maduro Moros and other high-ranking Venezuelans in the Maduro regime.”
But experts say “cartels de los soles” range from non-cartels to non-existent organizations.
“There is no such thing as the Cartel de los Soles,” said Sanjo Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
According to Insight Crime, a think tank that tracks organized crime in the Americas, the name dates back to 1993, when two Venezuelan military counternarcotics officers were accused of drug trafficking. The term, which means “Sun Cartel,” refers to the sun design on the epaulettes of Venezuelan military commanders.
The term “Cartel de los Soles” arose from the slang of the time, Tree said.
“There is certainly a lot of drug corruption within the Venezuelan military. They are in a great position to make money and seek rent for their positions,” Tree said. But he said they do not function as an organized cartel and do not meet regularly.
Vigil said the name dates back to the 1990s, when some Venezuelan military generals and politicians maintained corrupt ties to the FARC under Maduro’s successor, socialist President Hugo Chávez.
“They colluded with them, protected them and allowed them to operate in Venezuela,” Vigil said.
The Cartel de los Soles then took on a more involved role in the drug trade, Vigil said. However, they lacked an organizational structure and remained a loose network of government and military officials, he added.
“They don’t have the infrastructure of a cartel,” Vigil said. “It is inconsistent to call them a terrorist organization.”
“Statistically speaking, there is zero fentanyl in Venezuela,” he added. “That’s not even worth talking about.”
