CARACAS, Venezuela — President Trump’s administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan Pråesident Nicolás Maduro by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the U.S. government alleges is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.
The designation, published Monday in the Federal Register, is the latest measure in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. In previewing the step about a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, of being “responsible for terrorist violence” in the Western Hemisphere.
The move comes as Mr. Trump evaluates whether to take military action against Venezuela, which he has not ruled out despite bringing up the possibility of talks with Mr. Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of the monthslong operation that has included a massive military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and striking boats accused of trafficking drugs, killing more than 80 people.
Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running.
As corruption expanded nationwide, first under the late President Hugo Chávez and then under Mr. Maduro, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking.
The “suns” in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.
The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, when the U.S. Justice Department in Mr. Trump’s first term announced the indictment of Venezuela’s leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.
“It is not a group,” said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. “It’s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”
Mr. Maduro’s government, in a statement Monday, categorically denied the existence of the cartel, describing the Trump administration’s accusation as a “ridiculous fabrication” meant to “justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.”
Up until this year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida that use violence for political ends. The Trump administration applied it in February to eight Latin American criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.
The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats; it is striking but rarely identifies the organizations and has not provided any evidence. It says the attacks , which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that the designation of Cartel de los Soles will provide a “whole bunch of new options to the United States” for dealing with Mr. Maduro.
But Mr. Hegseth, speaking in an interview with conservative news outlet OAN, did not provide details on what those options are and declined to say whether the U.S. military planned to strike land targets inside Venezuela.
“So nothing is off the table, but nothing’s automatically on the table,” he said.
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