NOVEMBER 24, 2025 – During a media interview at the Pentagon that spanned a handful of topics Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said plans to declare Venezuela’s state-embedded criminal network Cartel de los Soles a terrorist organization will bring “a whole bunch of new options” to how the U.S. deals with narco-terrorists in that region.
The cartel, whose name translates to “Cartel of the Suns” and is alleged to be headed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, is set to be designated as a terror organization by the State Department Nov. 24.
If the designation goes through, Cartel of the Suns will be the ninth such criminal network designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration’s Executive Order 14157 since February.
“[The terror designation] gives more tools to our [War] Department to give options to [President Donald J. Trump] to ultimately say our hemisphere will not be controlled by narco-terrorists, it will not be controlled by cartels, [and] it will not be controlled by what illegitimate regimes try to push toward the American people. So, it’s just about options, and we plan better than any organization in the world here,” Hegseth said.
No decisions related to countering Maduro’s cartel are “off the table,” he added, but “nothing is automatically on the table,” either.
U.S. Southern Command has conducted at least 20 lethal maritime strikes on intelligence-confirmed narco-terrorists in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean since September.
Hegseth said it would be inappropriate to discuss whether there are any plans underway to augment those strikes by engaging Venezuela on land.
“Again, we have a lot of options; we’ll make sure we have the authorities to do so, and we will protect the American people,” he said.
In addition to countering narco-terror at sea and addressing the threat posed by Cartel of the Suns, Hegseth also spoke on the Trump administration’s concerns about cartel activity in Mexico.
“We believe that Mexico should address that cartel problem and be really aggressive about it, and they have done so in some quarters. But, in others, the poisoning of the American people still continues, and — as the president has said — we are going to stop this,” Hegseth said.
He also noted that in addition to all the options the U.S. has in its own hemisphere, it’s important to recognize how well the military has countered narco-terrorists for over 20 years during the war on terror.
“Our ability to range and reach narco-terrorists in, say, Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan for 20 years is about as well-honed as any machine — better than any machine in the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if applying that same pressure is necessary in our own hemisphere, no country would apply such pressure better than the U.S.
“Nobody would do it better, whether it’s on land or in the maritime. So, right now, our focus with [Operation] Southern Spear is these [narco-terrorist drug] boats and the trafficking that must stop,” Hegseth said, before delivering a cautionary warning concerning any future narco-terror activity.
“Don’t get in a boat, because it’s going to end poorly for you,” he said.
By Matthew Olay, Pentagon News