The State Department designated Venezuela’s “Cartel de los Soles” as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on Monday as part of an escalating campaign aimed at forcing President Nicolás Maduro from power. The designation comes amid an ongoing campaign of US strikes on suspected drug boats that has killed more than 80 people, the largest build-up of US military forces in the Caribbean in decades, and the news that President Donald Trump has authorized covert action within Venezuela.

The designation of Cartel de los Soles — which the US says is led by Maduro himself alongside other high-ranking Venezuelan officials and military officers — “brings a whole bunch of new options to the United States,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week.

From a legal perspective, it’s not clear what options he’s talking about. FTO designation brings with it a range of penalties, including economic sanctions and visa bans, but it does not authorize military action. Trump has used it that way in the past, however; in his first term, his administration controversially designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization shortly before assassinating its commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in a drone........

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