US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said they intend to designate Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization. Pool File Photo by Fadel Senna/UPI | License Photo
The Trump administration said it intends to designate a Venezuelan-based drug cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, amid signals that it may take military action against the Caribbean nation.
The State Department announced Sunday that it “intends” to designate Cartel de los Soles. The designation will go into effect Nov. 24.
It claimed, without providing proof, that the cartel was “headed” by Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, a longtime foe of Trump, and other high-ranking regime officials.
“Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated FTOs including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
“The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.”
The announcement comes as the Trump administration has been heightening tensions in the Pacific and Caribbean.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump’s targeting of cartels and drug trafficking has been central to his hardline anti-immigration policy.
On Feb. 20, he designated eight cartels as terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, followed by invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March under the justification that TdA was perpetrating an “invasion” of the United States at the direction of Maduro to expedite the detention and removal of non-citizens.
The president’s administration has yet to provide evidence of Maduro’s involvement, and his own National Intelligence Council concluded in May that Maduro “probably does not have a policy of cooperating” with TdA.
Trump’s invocation of the AEA has been challenged in court, resulting in several judges either blocking or limiting its use amid litigation over concerns, including the notion that the United States was being invaded.
Since Sept. 2, Trump has been attacking boats in the Pacific and Caribbean, killing some 80 people, stating they are drug traffickers piloting drug-trafficking vessels. But the attacks have attracted both domestic and international condemnation and accusations of extrajudicial killings from United Nations experts and even accusations of murder from the president of Colombia.
Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Operation Southern Spear.
“This mission defends our homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our hemisphere and secures our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” he said.
Amid a U.S. military buildup in the region, the United States on Sunday deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, to the Caribbean Sea.
On Friday, following high-level meetings on Venezuela, Trump told reporters that he has “sort of made up my mind” on a plan of action, though he did not say what it was.
Maduro has long been a target of Trump. Following Maduro’s widely discredited election to a second term in 2019, Trump attempted to oust Maduro through a maximum pressure campaign of sanctions, political pressure and threats, which ended when Joe Biden was elected U.S. President in 2020.
Amid the current military buildup, the Venezuelan leader has repeatedly called for peace with the United States.
“We send our message from Venezuela to Christians in the United States and throughout America, to be defenders and carry the banner of peace, harmony and forgiveness,” Maduro said in a statement on Sunday.
“It’s a sacred union that moves us!”
