The FTO designation isn’t enough: the limits of U.S. legal action against the Cartel de los Soles
The designation of the Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), while groundbreaking and significant, is not a silver bullet. This label carries considerable political weight, yet it has legal and operational limitations that confine the U.S. government’s capabilities in its fight against a criminal operation entrenched in the very fabric of the Venezuelan state.
The primary strength of this designation lies in its ability to transform a drug trafficking issue into a national security threat. The classification under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act not only stigmatizes the cartel but also enables the U.S. to treat its members under the same legal standards applied to organizations like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or ISIS. Overnight, the network that Washington links to Maduro is subjected to one of the strictest regimes in U.S. law: belonging to, supporting, or financing the group becomes a serious federal crime, and any entity—be it a company, bank, intermediary, or individual—that interacts with the network is at risk of criminal liability.
This shift has an immediate consequence: it isolates the Venezuelan regime from any potential diplomatic normalization, since any foreign official must now consider whether sitting down to negotiate with Caracas could be interpreted as contact with a terrorist organization. The FTO designation also serves as a warning to banks, oil companies, and governments still looking to engage with Venezuela: Washington is prepared to escalate pressure to the fullest extent permitted by anti-terrorism laws.
However, the designation has a fundamental limitation: it does not authorize military force. Section 219 is not the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) or a mandate for special ops; it’s a civil and criminal legal tool designed to restrict financing, mobility, and support for terrorist groups, not to justify armed interventions. The State Department reiterates this in every announcement: an FTO does not inherently open the door to offensive military actions.
This legal boundary is crucial. The U.S. can arrest, prosecute, deport, or sanction those who support the Cartel de los Soles; it can freeze assets, pressure foreign banks, enhance joint operations against drug trafficking, and ramp up counter-terrorism cooperation in the region. But the label does not allow for bombing regime facilities or deploying troops on Venezuelan soil. It’s a powerful legal-financial hammer, not a greenlight for armed conflict.
The strength of the designation lies elsewhere: in the gray area where diplomacy, intelligence, finance, and covert operations converge. An FTO makes any ally, contractor, or facilitator of the cartel legally liable. It isolates the network and renders it toxic for anyone dependent on the global financial system. It provides tools for the Justice Department to pursue individuals who could only previously be investigated for drug trafficking, a crime that tends to generate more diplomatic friction. Most importantly, it creates a framework for inter-agency coordination: Treasury, State, FBI, DHS, DEA, and special operations, each under its own authority, but within a common narrative.
Herein lies the most decisive advantage: the FTO classifies the Cartel de los Soles as a transnational threat, accessible simultaneously by various U.S. government branches. If one accusation fails, the financial front remains. If a sanction loses effectiveness, the migratory front activates. If diplomatic pressure stalls, counter-terrorism cooperation with third countries ramps up. It’s a network confronting another network.
Yet the limitations are real. The designation does not answer a central question: how to act when the terrorist organization is not a clandestine group, but the very government controlling the territory. The FTO works effectively against cells and criminal networks; it faces serious challenges when the structure is rooted in barracks, ministries, and courts. It’s not enough to cut funding if the network controls the state; it’s not enough to block routes if the national infrastructure serves the cartel. The coercive power of the label collides with the political reality that the U.S. does not recognize, but also does not control, the territory where the organization operates.
The result is a hybrid scenario. Washington can encircle the Cartel de los Soles from the outside, intensify financial and judicial pressure, and weaken its capacity to project power beyond its borders. It can coordinate regional operations, dismantle routes, criminally charge key figures, and erode Maduro’s international legitimacy. But with the FTO alone, it cannot physically neutralize the network within Venezuela nor force a regime change by legal means. That gap—between legal reach and the territorial power of the regime—is the most challenging space on the board.
The designation, despite its limits, completely redefines the Venezuelan conflict: it is no longer an authoritarian regime sanctioned for corruption or human rights violations; it is, within the legal framework of the United States, a terrorist entity with state control. This framework opens up tools that did not previously exist but does not resolve the fundamental dilemma: how to deal with a criminal-terrorist apparatus that is also a government and whose grip on power relies on an ecosystem of allies—Russia, Iran, Cuba—that do not recognize the legitimacy of the label.
The future of this designation will depend less on what the law states and more on how it interacts with three external variables: the regime’s ability to maintain internal cohesion, the behavior of its extra-regional allies, and Washington’s willingness to sustain a prolonged war of attrition strategy. The FTO is a powerful tool for besieging, isolating, and weakening. But its total effectiveness requires something that no law can impose: that the center of gravity of Venezuelan power begins to fracture from within.