On Tuesday, September 2, 2025, a new chapter unfolded in the ongoing saga of U.S. relations with Latin America, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio landed in Mexico for high-stakes talks on security, drugs, and migration. The visit comes at a time when tensions between the United States and its southern neighbors are at a fever pitch, stoked by months of pressure from President Donald Trump and a series of controversial policy moves that have left many in the region wary of Washington’s intentions.
According to The New York Times, Rubio’s trip marks his third visit to Latin America since taking the helm at the State Department. After Mexico, he is set to travel to Ecuador, another country thrust into the spotlight amid the shifting dynamics of the hemispheric drug trade. The backdrop to these diplomatic maneuvers is a complex web of accusations, data, and geopolitical interests that has seen countries like Venezuela and Cuba demonized in U.S. rhetoric, while other major players in the drug trade often escape similar scrutiny.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, facing the dual challenge of cooperating with the U.S. on mutual interests while maintaining her country’s dignity, has found herself walking a tightrope. She must demonstrate to Mexicans that she is not capitulating to what many see as bullying from Trump, even as her administration has ramped up arrests of alleged cartel members. Yet, for the Trump administration, it seems nothing short of total compliance will suffice. Trump and Rubio have repeatedly insisted that Mexico do more to combat drug cartels, blaming them for the flood of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs into the United States.
But is the narrative as clear-cut as Washington suggests? The 2025 World Drug Report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) paints a very different picture—especially when it comes to Venezuela, a country often portrayed by the Trump administration as a “narco-state.” In fact, as Pino Arlacchi, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Vienna Office and ex-UNODC chief, writes for Venezuelanalysis, Venezuela’s collaboration in the fight against drug trafficking has historically been among the best in South America, rivaled only by Cuba’s “impeccable record.”
The 2025 UNODC report is unequivocal: Venezuela is a marginal player in the global drug trade. Only about 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela—a figure dwarfed by the volumes moving through other countries. For context, in 2018, Colombia produced or traded 2,370 tons of cocaine, while Venezuela saw just 210 tons pass through its territory. Meanwhile, Guatemala, which rarely features in U.S. anti-drug rhetoric, handled 1,400 tons that same year—making it a drug corridor seven times more significant than Venezuela. Yet, the political spotlight remains fixed on Caracas, a fact Arlacchi attributes to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves rather than any real connection to narcotrafficking.
Perhaps the most telling indictment of U.S. claims is the myth of the so-called “Cartel de los Soles.” Allegedly led by Venezuela’s president and supposedly powerful enough to warrant a $50 million bounty, it is, according to Arlacchi, “a product of Trump’s imagination.” The entity is not mentioned in any major anti-drug agency report—not even as a footnote. How, Arlacchi asks, can a cartel so supposedly powerful be completely ignored by every relevant international and European agency? The silence is, in his words, “deafening.”
Meanwhile, the real hubs of the drug trade are hiding in plain sight. Ecuador, for example, has emerged as a major transit point for cocaine. According to European Union investigators, 57% of banana containers leaving the port of Guayaquil for Antwerp are loaded with cocaine. In one high-profile case, European authorities seized 13 tons of cocaine aboard a Spanish ship coming from Ecuadorian ports—ports, incidentally, controlled by companies with alleged government protection. Ecuador’s homicide rate has also skyrocketed, rising from 7.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to a staggering 45.7 in 2023. Yet, Ecuador’s name rarely surfaces in U.S. political speeches about the drug crisis. Could it be, as Arlacchi suggests, that Ecuador’s oil reserves are meager compared to Venezuela’s, and its government does not challenge U.S. dominance in the region?
Geography, it turns out, is a stubborn thing. Most of the world’s cocaine is produced in Colombia (over 70%), with Peru and Bolivia accounting for most of the rest. The main trafficking routes to the American and European markets run via the Pacific to Asia, through the eastern Caribbean toward Europe, and overland through Central America. Venezuela, bordering the South Atlantic, is geographically disadvantaged for all three major routes. As Arlacchi puts it, “criminal logistics mean that Venezuela plays only a marginal role in the grand theater of international narcotrafficking.”
Cuba, often demonized by U.S. politicians, is actually held up as a model of anti-drug cooperation. Both the DEA and FBI have praised Cuba’s rigorous policies, and Venezuela, under the so-called Chavista government, has followed suit with international cooperation, territorial control, and strict repression of criminal activities. Neither country has ever had large-scale coca cultivation or been controlled by organized crime syndicates. The European Union’s 2025 European Drug Report, based on hard data rather than geopolitical posturing, does not mention Venezuela at all as a corridor for the international drug trade. Instead, the report identifies Colombia as the main source of cocaine for Europe, with distribution routes running through Central America and West Africa. Venezuela and Cuba simply don’t figure into the equation.
Yet, the U.S. continues to press its case. President Trump has secretly signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to take military action against certain Latin American drug cartels, labeling them terrorist organizations. This escalation, reported by The New York Times last month, has further strained relations with countries across the region. Trump’s approach has not been limited to Mexico or Venezuela; he has also threatened traditional partners like Canada, Greenland, and Panama, seeking to project greater U.S. power and dominance across the Americas.
Behind the rhetoric, some suggest, lies a different motivation altogether. In his memoir, former FBI Director James Comey recounts Trump telling him that Venezuela’s government was “sitting on a mountain of oil that we have to buy.” For Arlacchi, this is the smoking gun: U.S. policy toward Venezuela is less about drugs than about oil. As he bluntly puts it, “It is Donald Trump who deserves an international bounty for the crime of ‘systematic slander against a sovereign state aimed at appropriating its oil resources.’”
As Secretary Rubio’s Latin American tour continues, the gap between rhetoric and reality in the war on drugs seems wider than ever. The data tell one story; the politics, quite another. For the people of the Americas, the stakes—so often measured in lives lost, communities shattered, and trust eroded—could not be higher.