Venezuela’s off-list move looks more political than diagnostic

Venezuela’s removal from Washington’s counternarcotics failure list matters less as proof of progress than as a sign that U.S. pressure has changed shape. The practical effect is still real — aid, multilateral votes and public stigma can move with the designation — but the transcript does not show that trafficking conditions improved enough to justify the shift on their own.

In InSight Crime’s discussion, Jeremy McDermott says the White House’s annual certification list no longer includes Venezuela among countries that “failed demonstrably” to meet counternarcotics obligations, while Bolivia and Colombia remain on it. He also notes that the category can affect assistance and multilateral lending, even when waivers blunt those effects.

The key point is that this list is not a clean trafficking scoreboard. McDermott says the broader “major transit or major illicit drug-producing” list is not necessarily a judgment on a government’s efforts, and the more punitive list is an official pressure tool. That matters because the transcript offers no direct evidence that Venezuelan drug flows, corruption networks or enforcement capacity improved enough to explain the change by themselves.

The strongest reading is not that Washington has certified success, but that it has updated its pressure logic. If the U.S. now treats Venezuela less as a noncompliant drug partner and more as a transformed political case, then the certification becomes a diplomatic instrument first and a trafficking diagnostic second.

That has a practical implication: the move may ease formal pressure even if smuggling adapts rather than declines. McDermott says routes have shifted, which suggests displacement, not a clean collapse, is the more plausible operational effect.

What remains unproven is whether Venezuela’s removal reflects better cooperation, a different threat perception, or a broader political bargain. For now, the responsible conclusion is narrower: Washington has relaxed one layer of public pressure, but the evidence here does not show that the underlying criminal ecosystem has been solved.

Source: https://insightcrime.org/news/the-insight-take-us-drug-certification-law-enforcement-or-politics/