The Cartel of the Suns is old news. Long-ignored old news.

However, its public damnation by Secretary of State Marco Rubio demonstrates the Trump administration is serious about protecting American citizens from the disintegrative war being waged by American enemies on U.S. soil.

On Nov. 16, Rubio, via press release, declared the U.S. will designate Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles (CDLS, Cartel of the Suns) a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).

In State Department diplospeak, an FTO designation tells U.S. security personnel (cops, military) they are authorized to use force to apprehend or, if necessary, engage when encountered.

Engage is milspeak for permission to shoot.

More from the press release: "Based in Venezuela, the Cartel de los Soles is headed by Nicolas Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela's military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary."

Maduro is Venezuela's president, which in the nationalist-Marxspeak(*) of Venezuela and other corrupt socialist countries means he's the dictator. (I'll get to the asterisk.)

Why is it old news?

CDLS —- Cartel of the Suns. Though the name is unofficial, the gang of crooked senior Venezuelan military officers has existed at least since the mid-1990s. They began by permitting drug smuggling by Colombian leftist gangs through Venezuela. The colonels and generals got a fee for "we see nothing." Eventually, they partnered in drug trafficking. More Yankee dollars that way.

Smuggling drugs to the U.S. dovetailed with Chavismo anti-American politics. Hugo Chavez founded Venezuela's nationalist-Marxist regime. He hated America. He wanted to rule the entirety of South America. No kidding. Chavez, Maduro's predecessor, saw himself as the 21st-century Simon Bolivar. (Google Bolivar.) This is more old news, but Chavez (now deceased) wanted to rule a continent.

To the kicker in Rubio's statement, which is new news: "Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela's legitimate government. Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated FTOs including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe."

Tren de Aragua is Venezuelan. However, the Sinaloa Cartel is ... Mexican. As in the nation of Mexico bordering California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Facts: California and Texas rank one and two, respectively, in U.S. state population. If California and Texas were nations, they would have the fourth and ninth (possibly eighth) largest GDPs on the planet.

Pegging the Sinaloa Cartel as a terrorist organization is new news.

My interpretation: Venezuela is an object lesson for Mexico. Mexican drug cartels control around $150 billion worth of the U.S. illicit drug trade. That dwarfs Venezuela's cut.

The Big Strategic News: Rubio's statement is definitive evidence the administration is committed to fighting and defeating the 21st-century disintegrative war being waged by America's enemies on American soil.

On Nov. 17, the New York Post reported that during a Nov. 16 meeting of the White House task force for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, President Donald Trump said (responding to a query): "Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It's OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs. I looked at Mexico City over the weekend. There's some big problems over there." Trump added that drug cartels are "killing our people ... like a war" (New York Post report).

Dying in Seattle, Houston, Chicago. Drugs kill, but so does drug-related violence. All are components of disintegrative warfare.

Over the last two years, I've written several columns on the subject. The term appears in chapter 13 of a book called "World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change." In a disintegrative war, a "unitary belligerent becomes increasingly fragmented by secessions."

How often do we hear Americans bewailing divisions in our nation? Anarchy, violent crime and corrupt politicians who ignore (or benefit) from it both exacerbate all other social ills and assure economic decline.

In this context, categorizing drug cartels as terrorist organizations doesn't go far enough. In 2025, they are acting as proxy armies supported by a foreign adversary.

As for the asterisk "nationalist-Marxspeak." Chavez' "Chavismo" combined machismo, socialism, caudillismo, populism and anti-Americanism empowered by Venezuela's oil money — definitely nationalist socialism. Don't be surprised. Marxism and Nazism (German National Socialism) produce the same totalitarian corruption, violence, poverty and murder.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: roger kuzna at Unsplash