BOGOTA, Colombia — The United States’ recent escalations against Venezuela — designating the alleged Cartel de los Soles a terrorist group and issuing aviation warnings that cut off flights— are about control over oil, not just cocaine routes or democracy, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Wednesday, November 27, 2025.
Petro: Venezuela oil, not cocaine, is the real target.
Oil is “at the heart of the matter,” Petro said in a new interview carried by CNN, when asked about #PlatinumPlan (which seeks to encourage billions in investment across Africa), and describing the Trump Administration’s manoeuvring with Caracas as not a real drug war, but “a negotiation about oil.” Venezuela, he contended, is not a major drug producer and only a small part of the traffic headed around the world goes through there, and more than anything else, its oil reserves are a strategic prize for Washington. He spoke in an exclusive interview with CNN from Bogotá.
Petro’s comments came after months of public infighting with President Donald Trump. Washington revoked his U.S. visa in September after he advised American soldiers against pointing their rifles at humanity, and the Treasury Department later sanctioned him over suspected links to the global drug trade — charges he denies and denounces as politically motivated.
Cartel de los Soles terror designation and airline cancellations put the screws on you.
The United States formally labelled the Venezuela-based drug cartel known as Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organisation on Monday, claiming that the loose network — including the country’s leader, President Nicolás Maduro, and his top military officers — is crucial to getting cocaine into the United States. The announcement drew tough words from the Venezuelan government, which attacked the move as a “ridiculous” attempt to characterise a “nonexistent” cartel and warned that Washington was using terrorism language as an excuse for regime change.
Almost at the same time, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration alert about “potentially hazardous” conditions in Venezuelan airspace led several major carriers to suspend routes. Gol of Brazil, Avianca of Colombia, TAP Air Portugal and Iberia of Spain all slashed flights to Caracas following the alert, adding further isolation for a country now isolated as U.S. warships and aircraft ramp up counternarcotics operations nearby.
For Petro, there is no coincidence in the timing. He casts terror listing, air and sea deployments and flight cancellations as levers in a broader campaign to squeeze Caracas into fresh agreements on its oil with Venezuela — even as U.S. officials say they don’t want a focus on narcoterrorism and regional security to be lost.
Sanctions on Venezuela’s oil were years in the making.
Petro’s argument lands on ground moulded by years of energy sanctions. Since 2019, when Washington first imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil firm, PDVSA, the country’s crude exports have been rerouted from the U.S. and Europe to Asia. As early as 2020, Reuters reported that Venezuelan oil exports had already plunged by about a third in 2019 as sanctions bit, with China becoming the main buyer.
Since then, the Venezuelan oil sector has been under a series of ever-broadening and ever-shrinking restrictions from the United States, granting waivers to only certain foreign companies while maintaining more sweeping penalties. In early 2024, Washington reinstated the tougher oil sanctions, a move analysts said would once more pinch Caracas’s oil revenue and discourage any additional investment in its ageing fields.
That zigzaging policy has extended into 2025 as U.S. regulators balance individual waivers for companies seeking limited access to Venezuela oil against more terrorism labels and criminal designations targeting Maduro’s inner circle.
The Trump administration’s defenders say the listing of Cartel de los Soles, naval raids on suspected drug boats and clamping down on flights are overdue tactics against a state-backed criminal network. Critics — now including Petro — view those same moves as the latest chapter in a protracted battle over who profits from Venezuela’s oil and whether military pressure can nudge it toward democracy instead of a deeper crisis.
And as U.S. ships roam the Caribbean and airlines slash routes, the stakes reach beyond Caracas and Washington. Any errors could place civilians at risk, challenge regional commerce and add to the chaos in a nation whose embattled economy relies heavily on Venezuelan oil for its existence.
