Terrorist Designation of Cartels Gives US New Power to Target Maduro-Linked Groups: Rubio

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that after designating several criminal groups as global terrorist organizations—including one linked to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro—the United States will be able to use all its power to eradicate them.

“Here’s the thing. We cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs,” Rubio said in an interview with Raymond Arroyo, host at the Catholic media outlet EWTN, broadcast on Aug. 7.

Rubio spoke with Arroyo about how the second Trump administration’s approach and treatment of criminal organizations designated as terrorist organizations has changed in its first six months.

“They have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, [and] in some cases armies [use],” Rubio said.

“They control territory. In many cases, those cartels extend from the Maduro regime in Venezuela, [which] is not a legitimate government … It is a criminal enterprise all the way to the various cartels that operate in Mexico,” he added.

Rubio explained that designating these criminal gangs as terrorist organizations gives the U.S. government legal authority to attack them in ways that cannot be done with criminal groups, noting that “it’s no longer a law enforcement issue. It becomes a national security issue.”

“But their behavior is going to have to change one way or another. But it allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever, to target these groups,” Rubio said.

“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply as drug-dealing organizations.”

On July 25, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Cartel of the Suns as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization and stated that the criminal group is linked to Maduro and other senior Venezuelan government officials. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced an increase in the reward—from $25 million to $50 million—for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The State Department had increased the reward from $15 million to $25 million on Jan. 10.

Bondi, in a video posted on X, accused Maduro of using foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa cartel, and the Cartel of the Suns to “bring deadly drugs and violence to our country.”