The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has decided this Wednesday to exclude Venezuela from the list of countries that violate their commitments in the fight against drug trafficking, a measure that comes after the "positive advances" attributed to the Executive led by the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.
"Given the positive advances achieved under the management of interim president Delcy Rodríguez, I have determined that Venezuela should no longer be singled out for having demonstrably failed to meet its drug control commitments," the magnate indicated in a presidential decree disseminated by the Department of State.
In the same document, Trump has valued the "growing cooperation" between Washington and Caracas to confront the cartels, citing in particular the joint military operation that culminated in the neutralization of the leader of the Tren de Aragua, Niño Guerrero, following the power shift motivated by "the arrest and removal of the illegitimate ex-dictator and drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro."
"I expect to see continuous and measurable progress from the interim government in dismantling narcoterrorist groups and in interrupting drug trafficking through Venezuela to the United States," he specified in the decree.
Despite this change, Venezuela remains included in the list of major transit or production countries for illicit drugs, which also includes Afghanistan, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Myanmar, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, and Peru.
"The presence of a country on the previous list does not necessarily reflect the current efforts of its government in the fight against drugs nor its coordination with the United States," the Department of State has stated in a statement.
The Department itself has reminded that these States can end up on the so-called 'blacklist' of transit due to "a combination of geographical, commercial, and economic factors that allow the transit or production of drugs or chemical precursors" even when authorities have implemented "strong and rigorous narcotics control and law enforcement measures."