{"id":577468,"date":"2025-11-18T03:22:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/577468\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T03:22:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:22:19","slug":"us-will-label-supposed-venezuelan-drug-cartel-headed-by-maduro-as-terrorist-organization-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/577468\/","title":{"rendered":"US will label supposed Venezuelan drug cartel \u2018headed by Maduro\u2019 as terrorist organization | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US has said it will designate a putative Venezuelan<\/a> drug cartel allegedly led by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> as a foreign terrorist organization, as the Trump administration sent more mixed messages over its crusade against Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian leader.<\/p>\n

The move to target the already proscribed group, the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns), was announced by Marco Rubio on Sunday. \u201cHeaded by the illegitimate Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, the group has corrupted the institutions of government in Venezuela and is responsible for terrorist violence conducted by and with other designated FTOs as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,\u201d the US secretary of state tweeted, generating excitement among hardline adversaries of Maduro who interpreted the announcement as proof Washington was preparing to intensify its push to force the South American dictator from power.<\/p>\n

But shortly after Rubio\u2019s pronouncement, those hopes were undermined when Trump hinted he might be prepared to negotiate with Maduro representatives. \u201cWe may be having some conversations with Maduro, and we\u2019ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk,\u201d Trump told reporters.<\/p>\n

Asked if he would rule out US troops on the ground in Venezuela<\/a>, Trump said \u201cno I don\u2019t rule out that.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, Trump stepped up his rhetoric towards Mexico, which he has accused of failing to tackle drug trafficking groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It\u2019s OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs,\u201d Trump said when asked whether he would sanction a US counter-drug operation in Mexico.<\/p>\n

After returning to the White House in January, Trump \u2013 who tried, but failed to overthrow Maduro during his first term \u2013 took a different approach to relations with Caracas. The US president ordered his special envoy, Ric Grenell, to visit Maduro and some of his top officials as part of negotiations involving deportation flights, US prisoners in Venezuela and natural resources.<\/p>\n

In recent months, however, those talks appear to have been put on the back burner, as Venezuela hawks such as Rubio and Stephen Miller reportedly took control of policy on the South American country, although observers believe some channels were kept open.<\/p>\n

Since August, Trump\u2019s administration has turned up the heat on Maduro\u2019s regime with a series of deadly strikes targeting alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the largest naval deployment in the region since the 1989 US invasion of Panama<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A $50m reward for information leading to Maduro\u2019s arrest was announced by the state department \u2013 twice the value once offered for the capture of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. On Sunday, the world\u2019s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the Caribbean bringing the total number of US service people in the region to about 15,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela\u2019s legitimate government,\u201d Rubio said as he announced the cartel would be designated a foreign terrorist organization as of 24 November.<\/p>\n

Experts believe the campaign \u2013 while officially about halting drug trafficking and attacking groups such as the Cartel of the Suns \u2013 is fundamentally designed to pressure Maduro into stepping down with the threat of military force.<\/p>\n

Many Venezuela specialists are skeptical that the Cartel of the Suns even exists in the same way that Mexican cartels such as Sinaloa or Jalisco New Generation do. Rather, the name is seen as a dramatized description of the way in which Maduro has allowed criminal groups, including senior military figures, to exploit illegal industries including cocaine smuggling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know it doesn\u2019t exist,\u201d said Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst for Crisis Group, who called the \u201cfictitious\u201d cartel \u201cconvenient shorthand\u201d for Maduro\u2019s power over the world of crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course there are people in the military doing drug trafficking. Of course the government allows them to do it and grants them impunity in order to keep them onside. But there isn\u2019t a cartel as such. There\u2019s no organization. It\u2019s not like Maduro is sitting at the top of this organizational pyramid directing the traffic and saying: \u2018Send five tonnes of cocaine to US this month, that\u2019ll help bring down the Trump government.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunson saw threatening to designate such a fantasy group within the week as the latest incremental step in pressuring Maduro to resign, or the military to topple him, or face possible airstrikes.<\/p>\n

But that campaign had so far failed. \u201cIt\u2019s three months since the start of this and they are still escalating \u2026 but of course the more you escalate the fewer options you have for escalating and the more it becomes apparent that you are bluffing,\u201d Gunson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt becomes less and less likely that Maduro is going to take them seriously which means that they might have to sail away, with nothing to show for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US has said it will designate a putative Venezuelan drug cartel allegedly led by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-577468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115568557602996748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}