The United States will formally launch a "war on drugs" against Venezuela, US President Donald Trump has declared. His speech, though, soon came under scrutiny when he announced a “full and complete pardon” for a prominent convicted cocaine trafficker.
On November 29, Trump ordered a broad military and diplomatic operation to destroy illicit drug networks allegedly connected to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government.
As part of the effort, the US has classified the Venezuelan cartel - Cartel of the Suns - as a foreign terrorist organisation, the Associated Press reported.
The Trump administration also authorised deadly strikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels, ordered Marines to the Caribbean, and deployed warships. The White House claimed that these actions were necessary to prevent the flow of cocaine into America.
Alongside these measures, the US President pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was found guilty in 2024 by a US federal court of aiding the smuggling of hundreds of tons of cocaine into the country.
Hernandez, extradited to the US in 2022 after serving two terms as president of Honduras, was given a 45-year jail sentence for a massive conspiracy involving guns and drug trafficking, according to The New York Times.
Trump made the shocking announcement on Sunday in a social media post endorsing Hernandez's right-wing party's nominee, Nasry Asfura, for president of Honduras.
Citing "many people that I greatly respect," Trump justified the pardon, claiming Hernandez had been "treated very harshly and unfairly."
Political analysts say the timing is significant because it comes only days before Honduras' presidential election, and the pardon essentially helps the conservative nominee.
According to the prosecution, Hernandez allowed bricks of cocaine from Venezuela to pass through Honduras on their way to the United States for years.
Both American and Honduran officials were taken aback by the president's decision to pardon him. Citing Hernandez's misuse of authority, ties to criminal traffickers, and "the unfathomable destruction" wreaked by cocaine, prosecutors requested that the judge ensure the 57-year-old dies in prison.
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine described the pardon as "unconscionable" and claimed that Trump's actions were additional proof of a "bogus narrative" surrounding his approach to combating illegal narcotics, according to The Post.
