Trump Goes After the Iran-Venezuela Weapons Trade

On Tuesday, the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it's sanctioning 10 individuals and entities based in Venezuela and Iran who were involved in Iran’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) trade.   

"Treasury is holding Iran and Venezuela accountable for their aggressive and reckless proliferation of deadly weapons around the world," John K. Hurley, the the Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. "We will continue to take swift action to deprive those who enable Iran’s military-industrial complex access to the U.S. financial system."  

This builds on previous nonproliferation designations from earlier this year, including targeting Iranian weapons procurement networks supporting ballistic missile and military aircraft programs in October and targeting 32 individuals and entities based in Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, Hong Kong, India, Germany, and Ukraine that operate multiple procurement networks supporting Iran’s ballistic missile and (UAV) production in November. 

The Treasury asserts that Iran’s UAV and missile programs are a threat to the United States and our allies in the Middle East and that "Iran’s ongoing provision of conventional weapons to Caracas constitutes a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, including the Homeland, and the United States will use all available measures to prevent this trade."  

One of the companies highlighted is Venezuela-based Empresa Aeronautica Nacional SA (EANSA). The state-owned company manufactures drones and aeronautical components, and, according to the Treasury, it: 

...oversees the assembly of QAI’s Mohajer-series UAVs in Venezuela and has directly negotiated with QAI, contributing to QAI’s sale of millions of dollars’ worth of Mohajer-6 UAVs to Venezuela. The Mohajer-6, a combat UAV with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, is manufactured by QAI.  EANSA was also involved in the assembly of aircraft that QAI sold to Venezuela.

EANSA maintains UAVs operated by the Venezuelan armed forces, including the Iranian Mohajer-2, known locally as Arpia or ANSU-100.  The ANSU-100 is an updated, armed version of the Arpia-001, which is a direct derivative of QAI’s Mohajer-2 and the first UAV produced in Venezuela.  The ANSU-100 is capable of launching Iranian-designed Qaem air-to-ground guided bombs.  

The statement also suggests that EANSA's chair, Jose Jesus Urdaneta Gonzalez, has "coordinated with members and representatives of the Venezuelan and Iranian armed forces on the production of UAVs in Venezuela."

Iran and Venezuela have a longstanding relationship that grew even stronger under Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2022, the two nations signed a 20-year cooperation pact that involved their energy and defense sectors, and it was said to show "the determination of top officials from both sides to develop relations despite U.S. and Western pressure."  

In theory, the sanctions will weaken Nicolás Maduro's already weak defense — the one he claimed has kept the United States at bay for 27 weeks over the weekend — as he relies heavily on Iran for tech and military support. Of course, this is just the latest move in Donald Trump's mounting pressure campaign on the narco-terrorist and the administration's attempt to isolate him from his foreign allies. 

On Monday, the president confirmed that the U.S. made its "first land strike in Venezuela on a "dock area where they load the boats up with drugs." 

According to CNN, it was a drone strike conducted by the CIA on a port facility used by the Foreign Terrorist Organization Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for shipping. 

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