by EuroNews
It’s published
The US is sending ships to waters off Venezuela as part of an effort to curb drug trafficking from Latin America.
The three amphibious attack vessels are expected to reach the area by next week, according to the US Secretary of Defense, who spoke about the anonymous status.
The developments will be confirmed a week after US President Donald Trump confirmed the movement. This will cause the US military to stop cartels trying to blame the US for the flow of fentanyl and other drugs.
One of the cartels Trump is responsible for is the Cartel de Los Salles (the Sands cartel), a group his administration has designated as a terrorist organization.
What is the cartel of the sun?
In July, the Trump administration suggested that the Sands cartel was led by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and supported by other “other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals.”
The US government has argued that the so-called cartels support criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua in Venezuela and the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
Both Venezuela and its neighbor Colombia have argued that the group has no real basis, but they have argued that Washington’s allies, including Argentina and Paraguay, have fallen into Trump’s position.
Experts say that although it was not mentioned by name in the anti-drug report from the US State Department in March, there is no evidence of a group of that name with a defined hierarchy.
Insight Crime, a think tank specializing in corruption in the Americas, said earlier this month that sanctions against the US Sands cartel were misdirected.
“The new US government sanctions on Venezuela’s so-called “Sons Cartel” mistakenly portray it as a hierarchical, ideologically driven drug trafficking organization, rather than a generalized corrupt profit-based system involving high-ranking military figures.”
The name, painted on Venezuelan military uniform, was invented by Venezuelan media after it was discovered that the two generals were involved in drug trafficking in the early 1990s, according to think tanks.
The tense relationship between us and Venezuela
The relationship between Washington and Caracas has long been strained, with US officials giving Maduro a third presidential term last year, denounced what they called an undemocratic election.
The United States also denounced the Venezuelan government’s crackdown on protesters after the election. Thousands of demonstrators were jailed after a conflict vote last July.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has expressed her support for Washington’s latest policy on Venezuela as Edmundo Gonzalez is recognized by the United States as the winner of the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, Maduro and his supporters have spurred fear of potential US aggression and urged people to enlist in volunteer militias designed to support the military against external attacks.