Enemies and Exemptions in Trump’s Narco-State Crackdown
The true context behind President Trump’s contradictory narco-state policies.
By Brandon Crivillaro
Just as the dust of the United States’ Global War on Terror has begun to settle, the scope has once again shifted South. What’s old is new again, and as of recently, that is the Trump administration’s hard stance on Venezuela. Doubling down on their position to fight the influx of drugs entering the country, Nicolás Maduro has been painted as the Manuel Noriega of 2025. Maduro’s socialist regime in Venezuela has repeatedly been labeled a ‘narco-state’, accusing Maduro himself of heading the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles.
The political tension between Washington and Caracas culminated in several strikes on Venezuelan drug boats over the last few months. As more information was released concerning these strikes, many were troubled over a potential war crime where a particular ship was struck twice, targeting and killing stranded survivors at sea. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, among others involved in this attack, has been under scrutiny regarding the second strike. Despite this recent controversy, the Trump administration’s posture towards Venezuela and narcotics trafficking in general has received relatively popular support.
Unfortunately, the entirety of Trump’s position on fighting narcotics has been undermined by his December 1st pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. After having served only a year of his 45-year sentence for aiding cartels in smuggling over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, Hernández was released from the Hazelton Penitentiary in West Virginia. At first glance, this seems to be blatant hypocrisy from the Trump administration, leaving many confused regarding the President’s motives. Taking a step back and looking at the United States’ historic involvement in South America and the recent targeting of Venezuela paints a clearer picture of the reasoning behind the selective support of narco-states in our backyard.
Selective Pressure
Venezuela and Honduras are not the only countries in South America exploited by the power of cartels. Countries like Brazil and Bolivia have historically struggled to fight the narco-state dynamic in their governments, while others like Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador also contend with a strong cartel presence. What spares some countries from the United States’ crosshairs and not others has always been and continues to be their political ideology.
Corruption can be found in all corners of the world, regardless of what ideology the government claims to adopt. What dictates the United States’ stance on a country in South America is how aligned they are with ours, not the extent of corruption or even how many drugs they smuggle into our country. Unlike Honduras, since Hugo Chávez began to transition Venezuela towards socialism in 1999, they have maintained close ties and support from Western-opposed regimes like China and Cuba. This anti-Western bloc has extended a lifeline to Venezuela in the form of economic support and essential human assets from China and Cuba, respectively. A quick read up on the Cuban Missile Crisis will demonstrate how dangerous this relationship can be from an American perspective.
As of recently, the Trump administration has made Nicolás Maduro Public Enemy No.1. The State Department has long accused Maduro of rigging the 2024 election, while more recently claiming he heads the Cartel de Los Soles and has blurred the lines between the Venezuelan military and the criminal organization. Since early September, the United States has launched over 20 strikes on Venezuelan drug boats, resulting in over 80 deaths. On Dec. 10, the US seized a sanctioned Venezuelan tanker carrying over 1 million barrels of oil. Since Trump’s anti-Venezuelan rhetoric took the spotlight in September, the administration has shown no signs of slowing down. President Trump has made it clear that the United States’ goal is to pressure Maduro to step down and turn Venezuela over to the US-backed opposition party led by the snuffed out 2024 election winner Edmundo González and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.
The Bigger Picture
If Venezuela has been socialist and known to be smuggling narcotics into the United States since the late 90s, what has sparked this sudden prioritization in policy from the Trump administration? The answer to that lies not in Venezuela, but in the resource-rich Eastern half of Guyana, known as Essequibo. This region of Guyana has long been disputed between the two nations, but since 1899, it has been internationally recognized as Guyanese territory.
In 2015, ExxonMobil discovered massive oil and gas deposits in the Essequibo region. Production began in late 2019 and has catapulted Guyana into the world’s fastest-growing economy. From essentially no oil production prior to 2019, the country now produces over 900,000 barrels of oil per day, with estimates reaching 1.7 million per day by 2030. For almost 200 years, Venezuela has claimed the Essequibo territory as its own, but since ExxonMobil’s recent discovery of oil and gas deposits in the region, the Maduro regime has taken an especially adamant stance on its claim to ownership. Over the years, Venezuela’s economy has reached new lows with hefty American sanctions, while thousands now flee to Essequibo in search of job opportunities.
Over the last several years, Venezuela has seen its claims of the Guyanese region ignored by the international community. Potentially due to economic desperation, Maduro began posturing to invade the resource-rich region of Essequibo. Over the last year, Venezuela has begun constructing military infrastructure, amassing troops, and conducting combat exercises along the Guyanese border. In hopes of maintaining peace in our backyard, as well as protecting American company ExxonMobil’s assets in the region, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Guyana earlier this year. During his March trip, Rubio pledged the United States’ commitment to Guyanese sovereignty, stating, “There will be consequences for aggressive actions.”
Since then, the United States has furthered sanctions against Venezuelan oil, with China strengthening economic relations in response. For the last two decades, Venezuela has remained China’s strongest ally in South America. The communist state has poured over $60 billion in foreign direct investment and loans into Venezuela since 2007, creating a strong relationship that could quickly become a geopolitical threat to the United States. As Venezuela further depends on Chinese and Cuban support to cushion the blow of Western sanctions, threatens regional stability through a potential invasion of a sovereign nation, and continues to smuggle narcotics into America through Maduro’s Cartel de Los Soles, it is easy to see why the Trump administration chose the harsh course of action that it did.
Honduran Dilemma
While the Venezuelan position may be easy to understand, what puzzled many was his decision to pardon the convicted drug trafficker serving a 45-year sentence, Juan Orlando Hernández. The former President of Honduras was found guilty in a New York courtroom in early 2024 for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel for over two decades, as well as aiding narcotraffickers in smuggling over 400 tons of cocaine from Honduras into the United States. Despite the American justice system handing Hernández a 45-year sentence, President Trump personally pardoned him. Without some context regarding Honduran Presidential elections, you may be wondering why the President of the United States would do such a thing.
Last month, the Honduran general election was declared a tie between former Vice President Salvador Nasralla and Trump-backed right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura. On brand with his sentiment towards prior American elections, Trump backed Asfura’s claims that election fraud was the reason he has not been announced as the new President of Honduras. Despite independent verification confirming fraud is not present, Trump wasted no time inviting Nasry Asfura to his club of election fraud victims. The President has not shied away in the slightest from endorsing Asfura and labeling his opponents as “communists” and puppets of “Maduro and his Narcoterrorists.” Ironically, longtime narcotrafficker and Trump pardonee Juan Orlando Hernández, also widely accused of winning his re-election by fraud, belongs to the same right-wing party as current Trump endorsee Nasry Asfura. His pardon was grouped together with Asfura’s endorsement in a post on Truth Social, even going as far as saying “needed aid” would only be given to the Honduran people if Asfura were elected president.
If Hernández and Asfura both belong to the party of recent historical corruption, drug trafficking, and actual election fraud, why is the President of the United States pardoning and endorsing them as the Honduran beacons of democracy? What once again appears to be blatant hypocrisy can be explained by geopolitical context. Similar to Venezuela, Honduras has quickly strengthened economic and political ties with China since 2023, while simultaneously moving away from trade with Taiwan. Through foreign investment and infrastructure development, Honduras has been a recent addition to China’s Latin and South American umbrella of influence. Which candidate supports a redirection in Chinese relations and believes Honduras was “100 times better off” when it had relations with Taiwan? That would be Nasry “Tito” Asfura.
James Monroe’s Legacy
Despite its age, the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 is very much still alive and kicking in our foreign policy. This presidential declaration from James Monroe forbade outside powers from interfering with or expanding their influence in the United States’ Western Hemisphere. While the Trump administration may justify its actions in South America by claiming they’re defending the country from narcoterrorists, the real motive lies in the same fight for regional influence. Since the end of World War II, the United States has pursued global hegemony through these spheres of influence around the world. The long list of proxy wars we fought in the following decades is a testament to how important we saw this goal. In 2025, we are no longer contending with the Soviet Union, but with China.
As the communist state reaches around the globe, establishing its influence through economic partnership and an offer of an anti-Western world order, the United States scrambles to contend in any way it can. We benefit greatly from our relationship with our only two neighbors, but as much as our security has been a priority up north, maintaining influence further south has also been a staple of American foreign policy since the 1800s. Venezuela and Honduras are perfect examples of how that lives on today. President Trump’s recent narco-state crackdown is not a moral crusade against corruption and drug trafficking, but a continuation of a two-century-old doctrine that will exempt those who align with us and make examples out of those who do not.