Iran’s ongoing domestic crisis has stifled the ambitions of its terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The instability also hinders the regime from funding its biggest foreign terrorist proxy, Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Hezbollah itself remains crippled by its failed military campaign against Israel. Nevertheless, Hezbollah is reconstituting its militant infrastructure through illegal commerce in foreign regions, mainly Latin America. And Hezbollah is the primary channel through which the IRGC derives its Latin American support.
Hezbollah’s Latin American operations are most deeply embedded in Venezuela and the lawless Tri-Border Area, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge. In Venezuela, Hezbollah’s freedom of action was recently threatened when the U.S. military captured the country’s president and began dictating government decision-making.
But in both geographic hubs, Hezbollah remains active. The terror group continues to generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year from narcotics trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting U.S. dollars, illegal mining and arms smuggling. At least some of that dirty work is accomplished by bribing government officials.
Hezbollah’s fundraising organ, the Islamic Resistance Support Association, still collects “charitable” donations. And its Global Dawa initiative keeps radicalizing and recruiting individuals through a constellation of mosques, cultural centers and youth groups. The managers of the malfeasance draw on a large diaspora population. Latin America is home to about 15 million Lebanese expatriates.
Since 2024, Hezbollah has actually upped its financial crimes in Latin America to compensate for its losses during the war against Israel. If the predatory practices continue, Hezbollah may not only renew its missile strikes on Israeli communities but also worsen Latin America’s problems with crime and government corruption.
Fortunately, Israel is cultivating its own bonds with Latin America.
In November, Argentina and Israel launched an initiative called the Isaac Accords. The strategy, modeled after the 2020 Abraham Accords, is to build a union of economic and diplomatic cooperation.
The diplomatic agenda is broad. One international policy objective is to oppose Islamic extremism. A companion goal is to suppress antisemitism. Yet another aim is to relocate Latin American embassies from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem (a path already followed by Guatemala, Paraguay and Honduras). Finally, the coalition may counter the political manipulations pursued by Israel’s enemies in the United Nations.
Israel and Argentina expect the initial group of signatories to include Uruguay, Panama and Costa Rica, where economic development partnerships with Israel are already emerging. Current political trends indicate that Chile, Honduras and Bolivia may also join the bloc.
The most urgent task for Latin American participants in the Isaac Accords should be to designate the IRGC and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. In addition, those states should adopt a harmonized set of anti-terror financing laws.
These measures would unlock the legal doors of investigation and prosecution needed to dismantle Hezbollah’s financially sophisticated, cross-border criminal enterprises. Then the applicable judicial authorities could reliably convict the Islamist outlaws, freeze their assets, close their front companies and/or revoke their visas. Today, Latin America’s financial crime statutes are considered adequate to convict individual defendants, though not large, complex criminal organizations.
Three Latin American states—Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay—have already designated the IRGC (or its overseas terror cell, the Quds Force) as a terrorist organization. Six Latin American states—Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Ecuador—have designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Assuming Uruguay, Panama and Costa Rica join the Isaac Accords, they should adopt the same anti-terror designations.
Meanwhile, the United States should compel Venezuela and other Latin American states to follow suit. Even those who oppose the Trump administration’s military headlock on Venezuela should support all Latin American decisions to blacklist Hezbollah. Last year, the U.S. Congress introduced legislation called the No Hezbollah in Our Hemisphere Act to establish that political position as America’s foreign policy, although the bill remains far from passage.
Another vital task for the Isaac Accords is to form an intelligence-sharing alliance similar to the “Five Eyes” collaboration involving the United States and four major allies. Such an agency in Latin America could help map Hezbollah’s networks, infiltrate its ranks, apprehend the kingpins and defuse their terror plots. A similar Latin American agency once monitored the Tri-Border Area but succumbed to internal discord.
Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency recently helped foil two terrorist attacks in Latin America. In 2025, Mossad insights helped Mexican security services prevent an IRGC terror cell from assassinating the Israeli ambassador to Mexico. In 2023, Israeli agents tipped off Brazilian authorities to a planned Hezbollah attack on the Israeli embassy and synagogues in Brasília. These successes showed the value of intelligence-sharing between Israel and its Latin American allies.
The Isaac Accords offer Israel and its Latin American friends a variety of mutual benefits. But the top priority should be to free Latin America from the organized crime that sustains Hezbollah.
