The Trump administration has added Venezuela to its annual list of major drug-transit and production countries and, for the first time since 1996, decertified Colombia as a U.S. ally in the fight against narcotics.

The Presidential Determination for fiscal year 2026, issued by the Office of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, accuses Venezuelan resident Nicolás Maduro of heading a global trafficking ring.

“In Venezuela, the criminal regime of indicted drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro leads one of the largest cocaine trafficking networks in the world, and the United States will continue to seek to bring Maduro and other members of his complicit regime to justice for their crimes,” the document says. “We will also target Venezuelan foreign terrorist organizations such as Tren de Aragua and purge them from our country.”

The announcement follows two U.S. military operations in the Caribbean against vessels Washington said were carrying drugs from Venezuela. A strike on Sept. killed 11 people. A second strike, reported Monday, left three dead.

The most notable shift in the presidential determination, however, was the decertification of Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producer. Washington placed the Andean nation alongside Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma and Venezuela — countries it says “have demonstrably failed” to meet international anti-drug commitments.

“In Colombia, coca cultivation and cocaine production have surged to all-time records under President Gustavo Petro, and his failed attempts to seek accommodations with narco-terrorist groups only exacerbated the crisis,” the document says..

“Under President Petro’s leadership, coca cultivation and cocaine production have reached record highs while Colombia’s government failed to meet even its own vastly reduced coca eradication goals, undermining years of mutually beneficial cooperation between our two countries against narco-terrorists,” it added.

Petro responded from Bogotá: “The United States is decertifying us after dozens of deaths—police officers, soldiers, and civilians—who were trying to stop cocaine trafficking.”

The presidential determination does not immediately cut U.S. aid to Colombia, about $380 million a year, much of it for military and logistical programs. But it represents a major political and diplomatic blow for Colombia, long seen as a key U.S. partner in the region.

The report added that the decision to decertify Colombia could be reviewed if Petro’s government takes “more aggressive actions” to reduce crops and production and strengthens judicial cooperation with Washington.

Colombia was last decertified in 1996 under President Ernesto Samper, who was accused of funding his campaign with Cali Cartel money. That crisis led to Plan Colombia, a U.S.-backed program that delivered more than $10 billion from 2000 to 2018 for military, social and coca eradication efforts.

This year’s determination also listed Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Burma, China, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama and Peru.

The strong declaration issued against the Maduro regime comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Caracas. Earlier this month, Trump ordered a major deployment of U.S. warships, fighter jets and troops to the Caribbean to target cartels allegedly operating out of Venezuela.

The U.S. Justice Department has indicted Maduro, along with several top Venezuelan officials, on drug conspiracy charges and offered a $50 million reward for his capture. Prosecutors accuse them of running the Cartel of the Suns, a trafficking network allegedly embedded in the Venezuelan military.

The U.S. naval deployment includes eight warships, some with amphibious assault capability, F-35 jets, and 4,500 personnel. Analysts called the scale unprecedented in decades, comparing it to “bringing a howitzer to a knife fight.”

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