[1] Literally “Cartel of the Suns”. In Venezuela, military officers wear suns as they advance, and not stars as in the U. S. military.
By Hugo Santiago Caro, EL ESPECTADOR, November 17, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
The announcement fits in with a broader regional military strategy and permits Trump to capitalize politically on the conflict with Caracas. But the real effectiveness of the measure is still in doubt.
The showdown between the United States and Venezuela continues to be unrealized, and from Washington, it looks as if they have decided to turn the screws necessary to force a change in Caracas at any cost. Already last week they told us about “Operation Southern Spear”, the military operation announced for Latin America, and on Sunday the next blow came from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who was in Argentina and announced that they plan to designate the “Cartel de Los Soles” to be a terrorist organization.
The so-called “Cartel de Los Soles” doesn’t function as a traditional cartel, but rather as a network of military, government officials, and criminal groups that operate within Venezuelan territory; presumably its head is Nicolás Maduro, all hooked up with drug trafficking and corruption. For Washington, this structure has been key to the shipment of cocaine to the United States for years, with the direct participation of the highest officials of “Chavismo”. The rhetoric of a gang of drug traffickers responds completely to the U.S. accusations, but the organization could also be interpreted as just a complicated interweaving of corruption.
If the U.S. designates it as a terrorist organization, the description no longer just refers to international crime, but turns it into a threat to the hemisphere. That step opens the door to tougher sanctions, joint operations with allies, and a level of relentless pursuit similar to that applied to armed groups like the FARC or Hezbollah.
It follows exactly the same lines as in recent weeks and months. The largest aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, the USS Gerald Ford, is already in Caribbean waters, between the British islands and Barbados near the Venezuelan coast and with more than 10,000 United States troops on board. At the same time, “Operation Southern Spear” has already carried out its first formal operation under this military strategy with an attack on a small boat in the Pacific which, along with the previous attacks, now total more than 20, with more than 80 citizens of Latin America killed.
Along these lines, it’s not the first time that Washington has taken direct aim at the heart of Chavismo, but it’s the first time the movement has deeper legal and political implications. The central question: are we facing a decisive move against Maduro? Or are we looking at another piece of symbolic pressure?
We have to read between the lines. At first glance, Washington has the regime under siege, but at the moment that happened, it had an internal effect on the North American country, and the announcement came just weeks after their electoral defeats by the Democratic Party, which won key governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, and for Mayor of New York. Of course, applying the iron fist is always going to serve President Donald Trump, especially in sectors with strong “antichavista” sentiments like the state of Florida. All that will be key in 2026, the year of congressional elections.
However, explains Victor Michares, analyst and lecturer at the University of the Andes, in a certain way it also puts everything together to raise the price and the cost for Maduro to stay in power: “Trump is trying to give Maduro some kind of possibility to come up with a negotiated solution that would allow them, I think, to make a political transition. I have very little doubt that there’s an objective that’s different from political change in Venezuela, and we don’t really know what that formula might be.”
That makes sense if we put it together with a statement made by Trump himself on the weekend when he said, while going back to Washington from his home in Florida, that there could be discussions with Maduro: “We could have some discussions with Maduro and see what could come out of that. They would like to be talking. What does that mean? You tell me . . . I don’t know. I’d talk with anybody,” he said. With that, he opened the door to going back to negotiations, something they had months ago ruled out completely, halting the work of Richard Grenell, his envoy to Caracas.
Nevertheless, as always with Trump, there are several layers. Pressuring with the designation and forcing the dialog is the public face, the one of statements to the press. In spite of that, Mijares also warns, all of this could end up, if necessary, in carrying out a military intervention without going to Congress for its approval. Yes, a week ago a bill that would have required a halt to his operations in the Caribbean and in the Pacific failed to pass, but an eventual intervention, according to the U.S. Constitution, would have to be approved by Congress.
If we go back to reading the pressure, that remains a symbolic blueprint, as Maduro has been on the U.S. radar for years. In fact, the first Trump administration offered a reward of $50 million and, in spite of that, this Chavista continues to concentrate all power in Venezuela. Ronal Rodríguez, spokesman for the Venezuela Observatory in Rosario University, interprets the measure with temperamental shading, since, in spite of the noise in the last few months, “what has happened up to now is that nothing specific has been achieved.”
“Although Venezuela is a dictatorial regime, the North Americans’ behavior ends up supporting what the regime is doing and is turning it into a victim of the situation, making Latin American and European leftists line up with President Maduro, in spite of his being a dictator that violates human rights,” explained Rodríguez on the internal effect. Meanwhile the measure will take effect on November 24, but in practice it’s one more drop into the glass that the United States is trying to fill in order to provoke political change in Venezuela. However, Rodríguez warns about this: “Many times these changes take place because of circumstances, often happening suddenly, unplanned, or something they expected, or didn’t think would have that kind of effect.”