The Baseless Claims Behind the US v. Venezuelan Naval Feud
In August of 2025, President Donald Trump put out a $50 million bounty for anyone who can aid the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. This reward comes after Trump’s Treasury office labeled “Cartel de los Soles” a terrorist organization. They claim Cartel de los Soles is allegedly headed by President Maduro. Confusingly, Cartel de los Soles isn’t a real organization; it is a term created by Venezuelan journalists in the 1990s to describe drug corruption amongst Venezuelan military leaders. The name ‘Cartel de los Soles’ translates to “Cartel of the Suns” in reference to the Venezuelan military leaders who wear suns on their uniforms much like American soldiers wear stars. The New York Times reports that the D.E.A.’s annual National Drug Threat Assessment has never mentioned the Cartel de los Soles, nor has the UN’s “World Drug Report.” It appears that the ‘terrorist organization’ worth 50 million of the US’s tax payer dollars is only real to journalists thirty years ago and Donald Trump.
Since August, Trump has deployed 15% of the U.S.’s naval power on Venezuelan coastlines. They have carried out 21 strikes on Venezuelan boats (killing 83 people) said to be carrying illegal drugs. The US claims to be motivated by a desire to rid the Western hemisphere of drug crime and corruption—ergo, to protect the US and its people from President Maduro’s poor presidency. In a press conference on October 15th, Trump made numerous dubious claims about the efficacy of the boat strikes. First, he claimed that the sinking of Venezuelan boats saved 100,000 American lives from fentanyl overdoses. PBS states that those claims are entirely baseless—there is no way to know how many lives might have been saved. They point out that if one follows Trump’s math, “...the strikes on five boats in less than two months would have saved nearly double the number of U.S. lives lost to drug overdoses in an entire year.” Even if one could calculate the amount of lives saved by these strikes, we still don’t even know if they were carrying drugs in the first place. No drugs are visible from the video footage of the sinkings, contrary to what the President claimed. In fact, most illicit fentanyl is smuggled in by US citizens from Mexico, not fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela. If it’s true that Trump really wants to protect US citizens from Maduro’s harmful policies, he might want to change his tactics from fear mongering and unnecessary demonstrations of force.
Although it’s true President Maduro isn’t unfamiliar with corruption, it is unclear if President Trump is the man to fix it. President Trump is reported by NPR to have stated, “I sort of made up my mind” about launching a future attack on Venezuela, as well as telling Fox News that, “We just have to take care of Venezuela”. With the future of peace in South America looking unsure, Americans and Venezuelans alike must pay attention to this sensitive issue.