 "The United States will designate Cartel de los Soles, which the US alleges is led by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as a foreign terrorist organisation beginning November 24. AFP")
The Trump administration is ramping up pressure against Venezuela. After the US positioned its largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, within striking distance of the country, America is looking to designate Cartel de los Soles, which Washington alleges is led by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking officials, as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO).
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US intends to consider Cartel de los Soles, also known as Cartel of the Suns, a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) from November 24.
Let’s understand what is this group that Washington is after? What will an FTO designation mean for Maduro and more importantly, where does this leave the US-Venezuela ties?
US to designate Cartel de los Soles
On Sunday, amid rising tensions between the US and Venezuela, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the country intends to designate Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), effective November 24, 2025.
In a statement, the US State Department added, “Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government. 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. The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.”
Earlier the same day, Trump said that designating Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation allows the US military the ability to target Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela.
“It allows us to do that, but we haven’t said we’re going to do that,” Trump told reporters. “We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out.”
“They would like to talk,” he said, without elaborating further.
Notably, the US Treasury Department had sanctioned Cartel de los Soles in July, deeming it a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organisation and alleging it “provided material support to Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel.”
About the Cartel de los Soles
The Trump administration notes that the Cartel de los Soles is a cabal of drug-running generals answering to none other than President Nicolas Maduro himself. The cartel’s name is derived from the sun insignias often portrayed on the uniforms of Venezuelan military officials.
The US further notes that the Cartel de los Soles supports Tren de Aragua in carrying out its objective of using the flood of illegal narcotics as a weapon against the United States. Additionally, the Cartel de los Soles has provided support to the Sinaloa Cartel.
According to some reports, the name dates back to 1993, when the links of two Venezuelan National Guard generals to drug trafficking came to light. Today, Washington uses it almost interchangeably with the Tren de Aragua, despite being a distinct organisation. “The Cartel of the Suns is a Venezuelan drug trafficking organisation comprised of the highest-ranking military and officials,” reads one of the legal cases opened by the White House.
US authorities claim that it was initially led by Hugo Chavez and after his death in 2013, Maduro gained the reins of this organisation, heading its massive cocain trafficking operations. Just below him, the US alleges, are other notable Venezuelan officials: Diosdado Cabello, the regime’s second-in-command; Vladimir Padrino, Minister of Defense; former Vice President Tareck El Aissami; and Maikel Moreno, Supreme Court Justice.
Mercedes de Freitas, executive director of the NGO Transparency International for Venezuela, speaking on the cartel told El Pais, “It’s an atypical cartel: a criminal structure within the Venezuelan state, an informal corruption network that doesn’t answer to a single leader.
And it’s this nature of the group that has made it the subject of debate among experts and politicians.
Jeremy McDermott, director of Insight Crime, an investigative website covering Latin American mafias, in a 2020 news report said the cartel probably trafficked nearer to 400 tonnes a year, with a “significant” proportion likely to have headed to Britain and Europe. “Venezuela is one of the only countries where drug trafficking is done by government rather than non-state actors,” he told The Telegraph. “It started under Chavez, although I don’t think he actively encouraged it. But under Maduro, the criminal economy has become far more important.”
But many others express doubts on the existence of this cartel . Phil Gunson, Crisis Group’s senior analyst in Venezuela, has expressed doubts that it is truly a cartel. “There has never been clear evidence that such an organisation exists.”
And he’s not the only sceptic: “The Cartel of the Suns does not exist; it is the far-right’s fictitious excuse to overthrow governments that do not obey them,” declared Colombian President Gustavo Petro last week. “What there is, however, is abundant evidence of the links between several Armed Forces commanders and drug trafficking; they are two different things,” Gunson clarifies.
Maduro, himself, denies any connection to the drug trade, although two nephews of his wife have been convicted in New York for cocaine trafficking.
Significance of US designation on the cartel
But what exactly does America’s FTO designation for the Cartel de los Soles mean for Maduro?
An FTO designation allows the US government to crackdown more aggressively on the group and its alleged associates, by making it illegal to knowingly offer them support. Moreover, characterising Maduro as a drug trafficker is probably America’s way of justifying their targeting of him or those close to him personally as part of its military campaign against alleged drug-trafficking.
The move is likely to ratchet tensions between the two nations, which is already on edge. Last year, the US decried the elections in Venezuela, which gave Maduro a third presidential term, citing them to be undemocratic. The US also strongly condemned the Venezuelan government’s crackdown on protesters after the elections. Several thousand demonstrators were jailed after the disputed vote last July.
Then, the US launched strikes against suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coasts of Latin America, saying it was a war against drug-trafficking terrorists responsible for thousands of deaths in the United States. According to CNN, the US has carried out more than 20 strikes on what it claims are drug-tracffking boats linked to Venezuela.
On Sunday, the Pentagon conducted its 21st strike on Venezuelan boats operating in the Caribbean Sea. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the US Southern Command said in a post on social media.
To compound matters, last week, the US’ most advanced aircraft carri er, the USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the Caribbean Sea. The arrival of Ford rounded off the largest buildup of US firepower in the region in generations, bringing the total number of troops to around 12,000 on nearly a dozen Navy ships in what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dubbed “Operation Southern Spear.”
The US’ moves against Venezuela have raised questions is pursuing regime change in Venezuela, in hopes of installing a government friendlier to the United States. But US officials disagree — Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says ‘Southern Spear’ is about protecting the whole Western Hemisphere, whereas Rubio said: “This is a counterdrug operation. And if they stop sending drug boats, there won’t be any problems.”
With inputs from agencies