US Says Relations With Venezuela Moving From Diplomacy to Law Enforcement

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on Aug. 7 that U.S. relations with Venezuela are moving away from diplomacy and are a matter of law enforcement.

“Usually when there are differences between countries, representatives from both governments can get together to try to work them out—that’s what diplomacy is all about. But that assumes that both countries actually have governments,” Landau stated in an Aug. 7 post on X.

“That’s unfortunately not the case with Venezuela, which has been hijacked by a criminal gang. Accordingly, our relations with Venezuela are fundamentally a law enforcement matter, not a diplomatic matter,” he added.

Landau was referencing the increase in the reward for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest and surrender to the United States. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Aug. 7 that the amount had been doubled and raised to $50 million.

“That’s the largest bounty in our history, and DOUBLE the amount offered for Osama bin Laden,” Landau said.

He added that he hopes for the swift restoration of Venezuela’s constitutional government, which in last year’s presidential elections demonstrated an “overwhelming rejection of Maduro and elected Edmundo Gonzalez and Corina Machado.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil, for his part, described the reward offered by the U.S. government as “pathetic,” a “ridiculous smokescreen,” and a “political propaganda operation.”

On July 25, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Cartel of the Suns as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group.

OFAC said that the Venezuelan group is led by Maduro and high-ranking individuals in the Venezuelan government, and has infiltrated certain Venezuelan institutions, such as the intelligence apparatus, part of the military, the legislature, and the judiciary.

It also stated that the cartel’s primary purpose is to assist other criminal groups, including the Sinaloa cartel and Tren de Aragua, in trafficking narcotics to the United States.

The Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs also addressed the Cartel of the Suns in a July 25 post on X, detailing that this group supports terrorists who have been invading the United States “to traffic narcotics, enrich themselves, and inflict violence against American communities.”