President Donald Trump declared Venezuelan airspace closed on Saturday, a move that underscores the heightened tensions between the two countries as Trump has lobbed increasingly bellicose rhetoric at the Venezuelan government.
Trump has no actual authority to restrict Venezuelan airspace, but he has presided over a significant increase of U.S. military forces in the region that could be a prelude to further action that the president says is aimed at curbing the flow of illegal drugs.
“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday morning.
At least six commercial airlines had already suspended flights to Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration warned last week about deteriorating security conditions and “heightened military activity.”
Trump’s post will almost certainly further crank up tensions with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who his administration has called an illegitimate leader who heads a drug trafficking organization.
The U.S. last week designated Maduro and his allies part of a foreign terrorist organization, claiming they are “responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs,” even though the group that the U.S. alleges they are a part of does not resemble an official organization.
Maduro has denied ties to the drug trade and has said that the U.S. is “fabricating” a war against him.
Since September, the Trump administration has killed dozens of people in strikes on boats that it claims are being used to smuggle drugs, saying that the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. In response to reporting that U.S. officials in September ordered a second strike on a boat to kill two suspected drug traffickers who survived the initial strike, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that attacks on boats in the Caribbean “are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes,’” adding, “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.” The Associated Press, however, reported that although a handful of those killed were running drugs, they were not narco-terrorists or leaders of cartels as the U.S. claimed. Trump said on Thursday evening that the U.S. would move to land operations to stop drug traffickers “very soon.” But even as he warned publicly about escalating U.S. actions against Venezuela, The New York Times reported that Trump spoke to Maduro on the phone last week, and the two men discussed a possible meeting.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News. Recommended
