The United States’ decision to designate the so-called Cartel of the Suns as a foreign terrorist organization has reignited debates over Washington’s long and often controversial approach to Venezuela. The move, announced on November 20, places the alleged Venezuelan network in the same category as internationally recognized extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. It also marks a dramatic escalation in US policy toward the government of President Nicolás Maduro-whose legitimacy Washington has disputed for years-and raises concerns among regional leaders about the potential for further destabilization.

For Washington, the designation is a continuation of its longstanding claim that senior Venezuelan officials have facilitated drug trafficking operations for decades. The US Treasury alleged that Maduro himself leads the syndicate and that “narcoterrorism” is intertwined with Venezuela’s security apparatus. These assertions have been central to the US narrative since at least 2020, when Trump-era prosecutors indicted Maduro and several high-ranking officials on drug-trafficking charges. The indictment portrayed the Venezuelan leadership as orchestrating a vast criminal conspiracy aimed at flooding the US with cocaine.

Yet despite these sweeping accusations, much of Latin America-and many independent analysts-remain skeptical that such a cartel exists in the form Washington describes. The term Cartel of the Suns originated in the 1990s as a media label for isolated incidents of corruption involving Venezuelan........

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