US Drops Venezuela From List Of Countries Failing To Combat Drug-Trafficking

Authored by Rachel Roberts via The Epoch Times,

The United States has removed Venezuela from its list of countries that it says have failed to demonstrably combat drug trafficking, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, Trump said he may also consider removing Colombia - with whom Venezuela shares a long, open border - as well as Bolivia, if these countries can demonstrate progress following recent changes of government.

Following the U.S. capture and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on charges of narco-terrorism in January, cooperation with the country's interim government is paying dividends, Trump said in the presidential determination published by the State Department.

Cooperation on Tren de Aragua

The U.S. president pointed to the killing of the infamous Tren de Aragua cartel leader known as "Niño Guerrero" as an example of how his government is working well with the new Caracas administration, led by Maduro's former deputy Delcy Rodriguez.

Venezuela has been on the failed list since 2005, when then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez kicked U.S. drug enforcement agents out of the country, accusing them of spying on his "Bolivarian Revolution."

"I have determined Venezuela should no longer be designated as having failed demonstrably to fulfill its drug control commitments," Trump said, adding that he expected to see "continued, measurable progress" from the interim government in "dismantling narcoterrorist groups and stopping drug trafficking."

Trump said Colombia was "poised to resume its place as our foremost security partner" in the Western Hemisphere following the election of President Abelardo de la Espriella, with whom he is closely allied, in June.

The U.S. president praised the people of Colombia for making the "courageous choice" of De la Espriella, a former high-profile criminal lawyer whose firm represented figures linked to Colombia's paramilitary and narcotics underworld.

'Colombia First' President

De la Espriella took office in August, pledging a crackdown on illegal immigration and crime, stressing a "Colombia first" approach, as the country joined the growing political rightward shift in Latin America.

Trump said that if, as expected, "Colombia makes progress on aggressive coca eradication and dismantling its narcoterrorist networks over the coming year," he would consider lifting the country's "failed demonstrably" status.

Trump put Colombia on the list last year for failing to combat cocaine production, amid a series of verbal exchanges between him and former leftist President Gustavo Petro.

Before then, Colombia had not been on the list since 1997, four years after the death of the infamous leader of the Medellín drug cartel, Pablo Escobar.

Trump said that cooperation between Bolivia and the United States has "significantly expanded" over the past year, since the 2025 election of President Rodrigo Paz, a conservative.

He praised Bolivia's extradition of alleged drug lord Sebastián Marset, described as one of the most wanted men in South America, to the United States in March 2026.

But he said the new government had not yet had sufficient time to reduce the cultivation of the coca plant for drugs, while corruption in Bolivia continued to facilitate trafficking and impede investigations.

If progress can be made, Trump said he would consider revisiting the country's status.

Four countries - Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma, and Colombia - are named as having "failed demonstrably" during the past year to make "substantial efforts" to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements.

A total of 23 countries, including the four on the "failed" list, are named by the State Department as major transit hubs or producers of narcotics that end up in the United States.

The other Latin American countries on the list are Belize, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru.

Asian countries named are Afghanistan, Burma, India, Laos, Pakistan, and China.

Caribbean nations listed are the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, and Jamaica.

The State Department said that a country's presence on the list is "not necessarily a reflection of its government's current counterdrug efforts, or coordination with the United States."

'Billions Seized' From Cartels

In his determination, Trump referred to his war on drugs, much of which has centered on stemming the flow from the southern border and on bombing smugglers' boats.

He said that narcoterrorists responsible for the drugs "invasion" are either "dead, in jail, or living in fear knowing they will be next to face American justice," adding that he had "unleashed the strongest military in the history of the world to strike narcoterrorists wherever they threaten our country."

The Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, an alliance with more than a dozen countries in the Western Hemisphere, has produced "historic results," Trump said, by drastically reducing drug flows and "seizing billions of dollars of illicit cartel finances."

Although progress had been made, Trump said that both Mexico and Canada - which are not on the list - need to "do far more" to prevent trafficking to the United States.

"Canada needs to take meaningful action to dismantle drug labs, strengthen supply chain security, and degrade criminal networks and Chinese gangs operating along our northern border," Trump said, referring specifically to the fentanyl trade.

Turning to China, Trump said the country "continues to be the world's largest producer of many of the precursor chemicals used to illicitly produce fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other deadly synthetic drugs."

He added that he had raised this with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, adding that despite some progress on export licences, China "needs to take more aggressive action" to reduce the flow.