The United States will designate Venezuela's Cartel of the Suns as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on November 24, marking a dramatic escalation in Washington's confrontation with strongman Nicolás Maduro and his closest allies.
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In Venezuelan political circles, the move is widely interpreted as an ultimatum: a final opportunity for Maduro to negotiate his exit or face what many consider the most serious threat from the United States to his government to date, given that the United States is deploying the largest concentration of military resources in the Caribbean in decades.
In a statement released Sunday night, the State Department said the cartel—which the United States says is headed by Maduro and leading figures of his “illegitimate regime”—has infiltrated Venezuela’s armed forces, intelligence services, legislature, and courts, while associating with other groups designated as terrorist organizations, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
US officials say the network fuels hemispheric violence, traffics cocaine to the United States and Europe, and finances the Venezuelan government's repressive apparatus. This designation would be tantamount to labeling Maduro and high-ranking officials, such as Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, as terrorists.
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent the legitimate government of Venezuela,” the State Department declared, adding that Washington will continue to use “all available tools” to cut off funding to what it called “narco-terrorists.”
The pending designation represents the most aggressive step taken so far by the Trump administration in weighing whether to use military force inside Venezuela, an option that has been openly discussed by several lawmakers and former officials.
