President Trump has doubled the reward for Maduro’s arrest to $50 million on drug trafficking charges, accusing him of leading the Cartel of the Suns. At the same time, the U.S. has deployed warships and troops off Venezuela’s coast as part of a counter-cartel mission. Trump’s team has made clear that their goal is regime change in Venezuela, even comparing their hopes to seeing “Maduro being neighbors with Assad in Moscow.”
In response, Maduro is raising a militia to oppose U.S. forces while reaching out to China for support. Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country has no knowledge of Maduro being linked to a cartel and refuses to investigate. China has condemned U.S. actions but is unlikely to get directly involved.
Maduro’s government had previously agreed to take back U.S. deportees, with hundreds of thousands expected to be sent back. He even publicly stated that “Venezuela is waiting” for migrants to return home after President Trump canceled CBP One appointments.
But while Maduro has sought to project a welcoming image abroad, in Washington, he is viewed as an illegitimate president who has destroyed his country. Under his rule, more than 7.9 million Venezuelans have fled, creating the largest modern-day migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba remains Venezuela’s closest ally, and President Trump has described Cuba’s socialist regime as “the hub of Latin America’s problems.”
In 2024, Edmundo González, the opposition candidate who credibly won the July presidential election, was forced to seek asylum in Spain after facing arrest warrants from Maduro’s regime. The United States recognizes González as Venezuela’s legitimate president-elect, yet still must negotiate with Maduro’s government on practical issues such as deportations.
The $50 million bounty on him stems from federal criminal charges first filed during Trump’s first term. In March 2020, the Trump administration unsealed sweeping indictments against Maduro and members of his inner circle on narco-terrorism charges, and Attorney General William Barr announced an initial $15 million reward for his capture.
In July 2025, the Treasury Department designated the Cartel de los Soles as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization with Maduro at its head, providing the justification for Trump to raise the bounty to $50 million the following month. The bounty is intended as a law enforcement tool to motivate someone to help capture an indicted fugitive who cannot be extradited because he is a sitting head of state.
Maduro faces four major federal charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence up to life in prison; conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, with a 10-year minimum up to life; using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices in furtherance of drug trafficking, with a 30-year minimum up to life; and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices, which also carries a possible life sentence.
U.S. prosecutors allege that since at least 1999, Maduro has been a leader of the Cártel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, named for the sun insignias on Venezuelan military uniforms. As leader, he is accused of negotiating multi-ton shipments of FARC-produced cocaine, directing the cartel to provide military-grade weapons to FARC terrorists, coordinating with other countries to facilitate large-scale trafficking, and using an unsanctioned militia as an armed wing of the cartel.
These allegations form the basis of what prosecutors describe as the “cocaine as a weapon” theory, accusing Maduro of intentionally flooding the United States with narcotics to weaken American society. Prosecutors claim he “expressly intended to flood the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and well-being of our nation.”
The U.S. now alleges that the cartel provides material support to two foreign terrorist organizations threatening the United States: Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel. Beyond enrichment, prosecutors argue that the goal was to inflict harmful and addictive effects on American users.
The Justice Department says it has seized more than $700 million in assets linked to Maduro, including two private jets, and nearly seven tons of cocaine traced directly to him. According to the DEA, a total of 30 tons of cocaine have been tied to Maduro and his associates.
The United States deployed three guided-missile destroyers, the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson, along with about 4,000 military personnel to Venezuelan waters as part of anti-drug operations.
In response, on August 19, 2025, Maduro announced he would mobilize 4.5 million militia members throughout the country in answer to what he called “outlandish threats” from the United States.
He promised to arm these militias with “rifles and missiles” and called for the creation of peasant and worker brigades “in all factories and workplaces in the country.” Declaring that “no empire will touch the sacred soil of Venezuela,” Maduro dismissed U.S. actions as “extravagant, bizarre, and outlandish.”
Mexico claims to have no evidence linking Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to the Sinaloa Cartel and is not investigating such claims, President Sheinbaum said. This underscores how much control the cartels have over Mexico, including the government, courts, and police.
Meanwhile, Maduro is leaning on China as tensions with the United States escalate. In recent speeches, he showcased closer ties with Beijing, highlighting a Huawei phone gifted by Xi Jinping and praising economic cooperation. China’s ambassador to Venezuela emphasized joint resistance to U.S. “unilateral coercive measures” and support for a multipolar world. Beijing also condemned recent U.S. military deployments in Caribbean waters, saying it opposed threats of force and interference in Venezuela.
While China benefits economically from its trade surplus with Venezuela and investments in its oil sector, analysts say Beijing’s support is largely symbolic, as it avoids committing to direct intervention.
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