The Trump administration designated the Cartel de los Soles a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Monday, marking another escalatory step in U.S. relations with Venezuela.
The group, whose name translates to “Cartel of the Suns,” is named for the sun emblems adorning the uniforms of Venezuelan generals. It consists of high-ranking Venezuelan military officers and government officials who cooperate with cartels in the country and form part of a web of corruption and profiteering. Some analysts have asserted that calling the group a cartel is inaccurate, and noted that there is little evidence that its members have any formal structure or leadership.
The Trump administration has accused Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro of leading the cartel and using its operations to harm American citizens.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters last week that the application of the FTO designation to the cartel would give the administration more tools to ensure that “our hemisphere will not be controlled by narco-terrorists, it will not be controlled by cartels, [and] it will not be controlled by what illegitimate regimes try to push toward the American people.”
The U.S. has been ramping up pressure on the Maduro regime since early this year, deploying a dozen surface warships—including the world’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford—and thousands of American troops to the waters around the country, ostensibly as part of an antinarcotics operation. The force is the largest U.S. Southern Command has seen deployed in its area of responsibility since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989.
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