Trump warned on Saturday that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered “totally closed.”
“All airlines, pilots, drug traffickers and human traffickers consider the airspace over and around Venezuela to be completely closed”wrote the North American leader on his social network, Truth Social.
This statement by Trump comes at a time when The United States intensifies pressure on Venezuela with a large military deployment in the Caribbean, including the largest aircraft carrier in the world, and admits ground attacks on Venezuelan territory in the fight against drug cartels.
The Caracas Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered that Trump intends to apply, extraterritorially, the illegitimate jurisdiction of the United States in Venezuela.
For Venezuelan diplomacy, the North American President tries to “insolently” give orders and threaten the sovereignty of national airspace, territorial integrity, aeronautical safety and the full sovereignty of the Venezuelan State.
“These types of statements constitute a hostile, unilateral and arbitrary act, incompatible with the most elementary principles of international law and are part of a permanent policy of aggression against our country”the ministry added.
Furthermore, the Caracas diplomacy highlighted that with this announcement the North American administration “unilaterally suspends the flights of Venezuelan migrants that were carried out regularly as part of the repatriation of illegal Venezuelan migrants” in the United States.
“To date, 75 flights have been carried out to repatriate 13,956 people”, he revealed, noting that these flights continued despite the crisis between the two countries.
Under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, the United States has maintained a naval and air deployment since September in Caribbean waters close to Venezuela.
Additionally, Washington associated Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with the Los Soles Cartel, a group allegedly involved in drug trafficking and classified as terrorist by the United States.
Cuba, a long-time ally of Venezuela, has been warning from the beginning of the climate of tension and what it calls Washington’s “pretexts” for potential military aggression against Venezuela.
On November 21, the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended “extreme caution” when flying over Venezuela and the southern Caribbean due to what it considers “a potentially dangerous situation” in the region.
Several airlines, including TAP, suspended their flights to that country.