On Thursday, August 7, the U.S. government increased the reward to $50 million for “information leading to the arrest” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom it accuses of collaborating with drug trafficking organizations and of having “strangled democracy.” Twenty-four hours after that announcement, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the armed forces to combat Latin American cartels designated by the United States as global “terrorist” organizations, according to information learned by the NY Times.

“Latin America has a lot of cartels, they have a lot of drug trafficking, so, you know, we want to protect our country. We have to protect it,” Trump told a reporter at the White House who asked him if he thinks it’s worth sending military personnel to fight Latin American drug cartels.

Following both announcements targeting the Venezuelan dictator, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted the announcement of the $50 million bounty on Maduro on his private X account.

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 9, 2025

Secretary Rubio said in an interview with EWTN that the designations allow us to “now target what they’re operating and use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever, to target these groups.”

“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply as drug trafficking organizations,” Rubio said. “It’s no longer a law enforcement issue. It’s becoming a national security issue.”

In February, the Trump administration designated eight Latin American organized crime groups, including Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, and the MS-13 gang, as"global terrorist organizations." Trump leads aggressive diplomacy against cartels | Photo: GETTY Y X/@CitlaCarvajaI

In July, it added the Cartel of the Suns to the list, led, according to Washington, by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, says the president has ordered the Pentagon to begin using military force against cartels designated as terrorist organizations.

The Wall Street Journal, citing an official whose identity it also does not reveal, maintains that for the moment Trump has limited himself to asking the Department of Defense to prepare options.

One of them would involve using special forces and intelligence units, although any operation would be coordinated with the countries involved, this newspaper adds.

At the end of February, the White House threatened to"open the gates of hell" against the cartels to guarantee security on the border with Mexico, but this country rules out an invasion.