The United States is ratcheting up the pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro with the decision to designate the Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading, a foreign terrorist organization.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the administration’s decision on Sunday night, his statement noting that the designation will take effect next week, on Nov. 24. Giving the Cartel de los Soles this designation gives the administration more options with how to target the group, and as a result, puts more pressure on Maduro to capitulate to U.S. pressure before it goes into effect, and gives Trump more optionality with how to proceed.

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“I think first and foremost, the designation of Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization is basically the latest step in the pressure escalation ladder that the Trump administration has been moving up against Maduro,” Henry Ziemer, a fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner.

Announcing the designation more than a week before it goes into effect, Ziemer argued, “is probably a negotiating tool and makes Maduro feel like he’s under the clock to come to some sort of an agreement or to risk the U.S. taking kinetic action.”

President Donald Trump has said he believes Maduro’s days as Venezuela’s de facto leader were numbered, announced he approved covert CIA operations on Venezuelan soil, discussed the possibility of strikes on Venezuelan soil, and said most recently that he’s open to discussions with Maduro.

The designation “allows” the U.S. to target Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela, Trump said on Sunday night.

“But we haven’t said we’re going to do that … we may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out,” he added. “They would like to talk.”

On Monday, the president told reporters he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of deploying U.S. troops in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has deployed significant military resources to the Caribbean region as part of this counter-narcotics strategy. There are approximately 15,000 service members currently in the region, in what amounts to the largest buildup of U.S. troops in the area in decades. Last week, the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, the Navy’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, arrived in the region to augment the current buildup.

American troops have carried out about 20 lethal kinetic strikes on vessels they allege were drug-smugglers intended for the U.S. These strikes, which began in early September, have killed approximately 80 people.

While the administration has only carried out these strikes in international waters, any U.S. operations inside Venezuela would be considered a significant escalation.

The president and his administration have maintained publicly that their primary goal is ending drug smuggling, though experts point to the overwhelming buildup of U.S. forces in the region as a sign that their ultimate goal could be removing Maduro from power, either by force or through negotiation.

“I think the FTO designation gives them a range of additional tools, both military in terms of how aggressively they can go after individuals and boats or other targets that they say are associated with this cartel, and then financial tools as well to go after any individuals or companies, or countries that they say are doing business with the group. So it offers them a range of additional levers that they can use,” Jennifer Kavanagh, the director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, told the Washington Examiner.

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The Department of Justice charged Maduro and several other senior Venezuelan officials in 2020 on allegations of propping up a narcoterrorist conspiracy. The indictment accused Maduro of leading the Cartel de los Soles since around 1999, which he denies.

Earlier this year, the administration declared a handful of other Latin American cartels foreign terrorist organizations, though those largely had operations in Mexico, not Venezuela. Cocaine is the primary drug that comes from Venezuela into the U.S., whereas Mexican-based cartels are the primary manufacturers of fentanyl, a much more lethal synthetic opioid.

, 2025-11-18 10:00:00, , Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Mike Brest