US President Donald Trump on Saturday sharply escalated his threats against Venezuela with an ominous warning that the country’s airspace should be considered “closed,” raising fears of imminent military action.
Caracas, which views a large US military buildup in the Caribbean as a pressure campaign to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, slammed Trump’s warning as a “colonialist threat.”
“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 social media.
Photo: AFP
He did not elaborate, but after months of deadly US strikes on alleged drug-running boats, speculation is mounting that Washington might launch some sort of military operation on Venezuelan soil.
Trump’s warning comes days after US aviation regulators told airlines to use increased caution near Venezuela over the mounting tensions, prompting multiple major carriers to suspend flights.
Maduro’s government then issued a ban on the airlines for “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government.”
A statement by the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the US president’s latest remarks a “new extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela.”
The airspace disruptions would also mean a halt to repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the US, a key Trump administration initiative, it added.
Venezuela’s military on Saturday also conducted exercises along coastal areas, with video broadcast on state TV showing anti-aircraft weapons and other artillery being maneuvered.
Although Trump has not publicly threatened to use force to remove Maduro, he said last week that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon.”
Maduro’s re-election last year was widely rejected by the international community as fraudulent, while Washington also claims he heads an alleged terrorist-designated drug cartel.
A steady buildup of US naval and air assets in the region has seen the world’s largest aircraft carrier move to the Caribbean, while US fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days.
US media reported that, despite the bellicose posturing, Trump and Maduro spoke last week.
The New York Times on Friday reported that Trump and Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while the Wall Street Journal on Saturday said the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Maduro were to step down.
Amid fears that Trump might launch a major operation in Venezuela, members of the US Congress — both Democrats and the president’s own Republican Party — have expressed anger that he has not sought legislative approval.
“President Trump’s reckless actions towards Venezuela are pushing America closer and closer to another costly foreign war,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer wrote on social media yesterday.
“Under our Constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare war,” he added.
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, until recently a close Trump ally, said similarly: “Reminder, Congress has the sole power to declare war.”
Trump is also facing congressional pressure over recent media reports that the US military launched a second missile at survivors of a strike on an alleged drug boat in September.
Leaders of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have released separate statements saying they would be investigating the strike, which legal experts say could amount to a war crime.
With Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress, the Trump administration has so far largely escaped probing of its controversial anti-trafficking campaign.
Since the operation began in September, at least 83 people have been killed in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
Washington has yet to release evidence that the vessels it targeted were used to smuggle drugs or posed a threat to the US, and experts say the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers.
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