The secretary of state’s comments come amid an escalating pressure campaign against Venezuela and the Maduro regime in recent weeks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of not having a legitimate government and called the regime a “transshipment organization” to traffic drugs sourced in neighboring Colombia into other countries.
“The Maduro regime is not a legitimate government,” Rubio told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a Tuesday evening interview. “What it is is a transshipment organization. It allows cocaine and other drugs that are produced in Colombia to be trafficked through Venezuelan territory and—with the cooperation of elements of the regime—are allowed to … leave Venezuela on airplanes and ships headed towards the United States.”
He added that Maduro’s regime “is a source of instability in the entire region” and that 8 million Venezuelan nationals have fled “into neighboring countries as a result of the regime’s activities within their own country, including into the United States.”
“Maduro asked [the Biden administration] that his nephews, convicted drug traffickers, be released from U.S. prisons,” Rubio also said. “He asked that his chief money launderer … be released from U.S. custody before he stood trial. In exchange, he promised to hold free and fair elections. He got the nephews back, the drug dealers, he got the bag man back, and he never did the free and fair elections.”
Rubio’s comment comes as President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that land strikes in Venezuela are coming soon, and days after the president wrote on social media that the country’s airspace should be considered closed.
Around 20 U.S. military strikes have been carried out targeting vessels in the Caribbean Sea that officials say were transporting drugs into the United States.
“The president has authorized a counter-drug mission in the region,” Rubio said. “The fact that Maduro is upset about it tells you that drugs are coming out of Venezuela.”
In November, the State Department said that Maduro is effectively the leader of a cartel called the Cartel de los Soles and placed the organization on its foreign terrorist organization list, opening up new authorities for the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the U.S. government also designated a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, as a terrorist organization alongside several major Mexican drug cartels.
