President Trump’s clear pivot to Latin America has meant bold action against narcoterrorist networks, including recent drone strikes in the Atlantic and Pacific. Those strikes, backed by a decades-long policy of offensive counterterrorism, are framed as necessary to disrupt cartel ties to Hezbollah and state sponsors like Venezuela while pushing back on Chinese influence in the region.
The latest strike hit a boat in the Pacific Ocean, wiping out 14 people and leaving one survivor, and it stands as the deadliest action so far. That operation underlines the administration’s view that cartel leaders are not ordinary criminals but organized threats that warrant military force. The strategy treats narco-violence as a security problem tied to international terror networks, not merely a law-enforcement issue.
Early in the Trump administration, the State Department declared several cartels to be terrorist organizations, a move supporters argue was overdue and accurate. Treating these cartels like terrorist groups aligns policy with how they operate: transnational, violent, and financially linked to state and nonstate sponsors. Adopting that posture allows the United States to use military tools when necessary to protect American interests and regional stability.
There are documented links between Latin American criminal networks and Middle Eastern terror groups, and those connections pose real risks. “Although Hezbollah has historically received at least 70 percent of its funding from Iran, its Western Hemispheric networks provide critical supplementary revenue through sophisticated criminal enterprises. These include drug trafficking, arms smuggling, document fraud, and money laundering operations, often conducted in partnership with local criminal organizations.”
Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro has deepened ties with Iran, formalizing long-term cooperation that critics say made Caracas a broker for malign actors. That 20-year arrangement announced in 2022 signaled an expanded role for Venezuela as a hub for trade, influence, and possibly illicit finance. In that context, Washington’s renewed pressure on Caracas and its partners reads as an effort to cut off revenue streams that enrich terror networks.
The previous administration tried to ease sanctions on Venezuela, a policy choice that many on the right view as appeasement that failed to curb corruption or diminish authoritarian reach. By contrast, the current posture aims to reassert deterrence and remove safe havens for organizations that underwrite violence. If cartels operate like terrorist armies, then responding with military force becomes a logical extension of long-standing counterterrorism doctrine.
Those familiar with modern counterterrorism will recognize the tools being used: targeted strikes and drones that limit U.S. footprint while degrading enemy capabilities. As critics debated the ethics and effectiveness of drones, the strategic rationale remained consistent across administrations: keep pressure on violent networks without mass deployments of troops. Offensive capabilities have become a central part of American policy since 2001, and many in Washington see that continuity as prudent.
“If one believes, as many of the critics of drone warfare do, that the proper strategies of counterterrorism are essentially defensive—including those that eschew the paradigm of armed conflict in favor of law enforcement and criminal law—then the strategic virtue of an offensive capability against the terrorists themselves will seem small. But that has not been American policy since 9/11, not under the Bush administration, not under the Obama administration—and not by the Congress of the United States, which has authorized hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the war on terror aggressively.”
Mexico has been pulled into this pressure campaign, unable to ignore strikes near its waters and the threat that narcoterrorists pose to regional security. Those operations force neighboring governments to choose cooperation over complacency, because the alternative is letting violent networks operate with impunity off their coasts. Reasserting control over maritime corridors is also part of countering broader geopolitical moves by rivals seeking footholds in logistics and trade routes.
Beyond the strikes, the administration appears to be nudging toward political pressure on regimes that enable these networks, with talk of regime change in Caracas surfacing as a policy option. María Corina Machado, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, leads the Venezuelan opposition and symbolizes the political alternative that some U.S. officials support. Whether Washington pursues change through sanctions, covert pressure, or diplomatic isolation remains subject to debate, but the kinetic element — targeting cartel leadership — is already in motion.
The argument from the right is straightforward: the United States is the lone superpower and has both the authority and obligation to cut off threats before they metastasize. Cartels that traffic drugs into our communities and fund hostile actors abroad are treated as targets because of that global reach. Transparency to Congress is important, but so is the ability to act decisively when national security is at stake.
