Hezbollah, a United States-designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), has a long history of operating in Latin America dating back to the 1980s, shortly after its formation in Lebanon. Active in 12 Latin American nations, including Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, the terror group attacked synagogues twice in Argentina in the 1990s and attempted another attack in Brazil shortly after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist incursion into Israel.
Since then, Hezbollah’s main proxy, Iran, has suffered military losses in three campaigns by Israel and the U.S. Additionally, the government of Lebanon, including its armed forces, has taken steps to disarm and neutralize its power base. As the latest military strikes against Iran by the U.S. and Israel continue, the scope of Hezbollah’s activity in the Western Hemisphere has generated renewed interest as a potential threat to the region and U.S.
Analysts point out, however, that the group’s reach has been weakened as Iranian funding dries up, its close relationship with the former dictatorial regime in Venezuela frays and the U.S. and its allies increase pressure.
Recent U.S. military action in the region has dealt a serious blow to Hezbollah’s profile. A U.S. military operation in early January 2026 to remove Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro further weakened Hezbollah in the Americas. The Maduro regime cultivated close ties with Iran, including the signing of a 20-year pact in June 2022 between the countries to coordinate an “axis of resistance” against the U.S. and its allies.
Hezbollah had controlled a cobalt mine in Venezuela and was involved in gold smuggling to Iran, along with other illegal activities, including money laundering, according to a 2025 Rand Corp. assessment. The freedom of movement of Hezbollah operatives in that country has come under scrutiny since the operation by the U.S. to remove Maduro from power. Venezuela’s new regime has collaborated closely with Washington to release political prisoners and dismantle transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) such as the Cartel de los Soles.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS News shortly after Maduro’s removal that Hezbollah’s presence in Venezuela would no longer be tolerated. “It’s very simple, OK, in the 21st century, under the U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, we are not going to have a country like Venezuela in our own hemisphere, in the sphere of control and the crossroads for Hezbollah, for Iran and for every other malign influence in the country, in the world. That’s just not going to exist,” he said.
Aside from Venezuela, Hezbollah’s presence is strongest in the tricornered region of South America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. The region’s free-trade zone has created lucrative black-market opportunities for the terrorist organization to engage in drug smuggling, money laundering, identify theft and other fundraising activities, which have gained more importance as Iran’s patronage — estimated by Rand in 2025 to constitute 70% of Hezbollah’s funding — dwindled in the last few years. Hezbollah operatives also have been arrested trying to cross the southern border with Mexico, mostly recently in 2024, according to Rand.
The loss of support and accompanying Hezbollah anger toward the U.S. raises the stakes for those fighting it, an expert testified at a 2025 U.S. Senate hearing. “Hezbollah and Iran hold the United States responsible for much of the losses they suffered in their recent wars with Israel, making it all the more important to track the group’s presence and activities throughout the Western Hemisphere and beyond,” Dr. Matthew Levitt, a Fromer-Wexler senior fellow and director of the Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said during a hearing of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control in October 2025.
Another witness at that hearing, the former head of the FBI’s Hezbollah Unit, agreed that the group bears watching, but said its momentum had been thwarted by recent U.S. and allied operations. “I recently met with U.S. and foreign experts on Hezbollah to exchange information on the current state of the group, discuss past and ongoing investigations and prosecutions, and share best practices to counter the group throughout the world,” Robert F. Clifford said. “The consensus was that Hezbollah, though by no means defeated, has been severely weakened.”