US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that Venezuela’s airspace is “closed in its entirety,” directing the warning at airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers as tensions between Washington and Caracas intensified over the administration’s ongoing war on drugs.
The declaration followed Trump’s pledge that US forces would soon expand operations against alleged traffickers onto Venezuelan territory, saying: “You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also… The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.”
The move comes alongside a growing US military presence in the Caribbean under Operation Southern Spear, recent strikes on suspected smuggling vessels, and Washington’s designation of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation, while President Nicolas Maduro rejected the threats, insisting, “There is no threat or aggression that will take us by surprise or frighten our people, who have prepared themselves to defend their land, their sea, and their air.”