I know that it has been a while but I've had other priorities in my life after spending over a decade blogging about various global issues. That said, the recent American activities in Venezuela have brought me out of my blogging lethargy.
According to the United States, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was abducted from his home nation and brought to the United States largely because he was branded as a narcoterrorist by the Trump Administration. Let's take a look at the 2025 edition of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA) and see which nations are responsible for the plague of illicit drugs in America:
The purpose of the NTDA is to provide "... a national-level perspective on the threats posed by deadly illicit drugs and the violent transnational criminal organizations responsible for producing the drugs poisoning our communities."
First, we find this letter from the DEA's Acting Administrator on the first text page of the document with my highlights:
Mexico and its cartels are mentioned four times in the opening letter alone.
Here are excerpts from the opening paragraphs of the document with my bolds:
"Mexican cartels’ production, trafficking, and distribution of powerful illicit synthetic drugs, chiefly fentanyl and methamphetamine, represent a dire threat to public health, the rule of law, and national security in the United States. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels (CJNG), together with their procurement, distribution, and financial support networks stretching across Latin America, China, and other key global nodes, remain the dominant threats for the trafficking of these and other drugs into the United States.
Fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, are the primary drivers of fatal drug overdose deaths nationwide, while other illicit drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and diverted prescription opioids still contribute meaningfully to the drug threat landscape in the United States. However, overdose and poisoning deaths involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids caused more deaths than all other categories of drugs. This exceptionally deadly drug – often pressed into pills resembling legitimate medications and presented as authentic to customers or mixed into other drugs – creates a heightened risk of fatal overdose for unsuspecting or otherwise opioid-naïve users.
The production and trafficking of drugs by Mexican cartels has fundamentally altered the drug and criminal landscapes in North America. The cartels capitalize on the relative ease of synthetic drug production compared to the physical and environmental limitations of traditional plant-based drug production to generate immense revenues. The cartels maintain steady supply chains for obtaining the precursor chemicals, primarily from China and India, necessary to produce these synthetic drugs. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, in particular, control clandestine production sites in Mexico, smuggling routes into the United States, and distribution hubs in key U.S. cities. The cartels work with U.S. drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and violent gangs to distribute drugs throughout the country, all exploiting social media and messaging applications to extend their reach to a larger and younger customer base. The cartels’ extensive, complex, and adaptable networks present formidable challenges across the U.S. law enforcement, national security, regulatory, financial, and health and wellness sectors."
The NDTA goes on to detail the activities of the Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation, Northeast, Michoacan Family and other cartels and their areas of operation within Mexico as shown in this example for the Sinaloa Cartel:
The document also outlines the volumes of various drug seizures along the Mexico - United States border and the routes that the drugs take through the United States as shown here:
In total, the country of Mexico is mentioned 121 times in the entirety of the 2025 NDTA whereas Venezuela is mentioned as a threat to the United States only six times as shown here:
So, this begs the question, which nation is the greatest illicit drug trading threat to the United States according to the DEA?
Posts
