Busting Up a Nexus of Narco-Terrorism

I n the Western Hemisphere, some of the gravest threats to U.S. security arise not from conventional armies but from transnational crime-terror networks that exploit permissive states to traffic drugs, engage in money laundering, move people, evade sanctions, and provide cover for terrorist facilitation.

Under President Trump, U.S. policy toward the hemisphere has shifted from passivity to pressure. The objective is straightforward: Dismantle hostile networks operating in our near abroad and deny them permissive access.

Venezuela has been the worst offender. A spider’s web built to smuggle drugs, launder money, and evade U.S. sanctions spread across Latin America — with Caracas at the center. For two decades, illicit oil, gold, cocaine, and people moved under official protection. This wasn’t a temporary breakdown of governance. It was governance — criminalized, monetized, and weaponized.

Iran fit hand in glove with the regime. After the Iranian Revolution and Hugo Chávez’s rise, both pursued a shared project of undercutting American leadership in the Western Hemisphere. Iran built a full-spectrum relationship to bolster Caracas — fuel and logistics support, technicians, barter-style payments in gold, and military technology like drone technology. But the most important advantage was Venezuela providing access for Iran’s terrorist proxies.

That access ran through Hezbollah, a terrorist group with a long record of mass-casualty attacks on U.S. allies and interests, from the attacks on U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, to the suicide bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, to the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, as well as later attacks like the 2012 Burgas bus bombing in Bulgaria. Hezbollah took advantage of permissive environments in the Americas to move money and support networks through trade, shipping, and corrupt access — turning Venezuela-enabled criminal logistics into terrorist capability. Hezbollah moved bulk cash, laundered narcotics proceeds, and used maritime routes to connect cartel infrastructure in Colombia and Venezuela to financial hubs in the Middle East.

Venezuelan officials also issued passports to Hezbollah. That is an identity pipeline, not just paperwork. It is state protection converted into portability, and it launders identity the way cartels launder cash — giving operatives clean-looking credentials to travel, transact, and embed. Once documented, illicit actors can move money, people, and operational support with the ease of a lawful traveler, while law enforcement is forced to chase shadows.

President Trump is breaking these networks apart. His tools are cumulative — indictments, sanctions enforcement, financial pressure, coercive diplomacy, and measured use of force when necessary.

With Nicolás Maduro now facing U.S. justice, the temptation will be to declare victory and move on. That would be malpractice. The “day after” is when criminal systems reconstitute themselves unless their business model is dismantled. Iran is also entering acute internal strain, with protests since late December 2025 amid economic collapse and a harsh crackdown — conditions that can increase Tehran’s reliance on sanctions evasion and proxy infrastructure abroad.

As a member of Congress, I have confidence in Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In briefings to Congress, he has provided a clear and coherent strategy to dismantle the nexus of narco-terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. President Trump is busting up logistics nodes, protected corridors, document and identity controls, and financial facilitators; putting oil revenue behind a firewall so relief funds stabilization and basic services rather than successor kleptocracies; and moving enforcement faster than network adaptation by targeting shipping, brokers, insurers, and front companies.

Our action to restore Venezuela has a direct impact on Cuba. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has faced ever growing poverty; Russia provides some assistance, but the regime’s main financial support has come from Caracas, with oil exchanged for intelligence access and special operations security forces. Cuba’s role is not theoretical. Cuba has publicly stated that 32 Cuban military, police, and intelligence personnel were killed during the U.S. operation that captured Maduro, underscoring how deeply Cuban services were embedded in Venezuela’s security apparatus.

A brittle regime that exports state security also sells access. U.S. officials have acknowledged Chinese access to intelligence collection facilities in Cuba, and independent satellite imagery analysis has identified multiple sites assessed as likely supporting China spying on the United States. Russia, meanwhile, continues to signal presence through naval port visits to Havana, including high-profile visits in 2024.

Cuba has relished its vocal anti-American role in Latin America, even as its political and economic models have languished. It’s happy to aid anything that harms U.S. hemispheric interests.

Maduro had the same heady feelings until his capture, but Cuba should learn, as Maduro did, that sheltering criminals and enabling our enemies has a cost. Our work in Latin America is not done, especially with most of the same thugs in charge of Venezuela — for now.

As long as drugs flow north into the United States, oil is used to prop up criminals, and our declared enemies in Iran, China, and Russia use Latin America for a foothold, we must be diligent. This is not a call for nation-building — and Venezuela is not “another Iraq.” It is a call for sustained leverage to protect the hemisphere — and the United States.