Analysts warn the move signals a \u201cscorched earth\u201d policy and could portend imminent airstrikes.<\/b>
\nPolicy experts and advocates on Saturday denounced President Donald Trump\u2019s claim that he had ordered the airspace above and around Venezuela \u201cto be closed in its entirety\u201d \u2014 an authority the US president does not have but that one analyst said signaled a \u201cscorched earth\u201d policy in the South American country and that others warned could portend imminent airstrikes.
Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that after months of escalating tensions driven by Trump\u2019s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and other aggressive actions, the US government was treating the Venezuelan people as \u201cchess pieces.\u201d
\u201cA country subject to air isolation is a country where medicine and essential supplies cannot enter, and whose citizens cannot travel even for emergency reasons,\u201d Rodriguez told Al Jazeera.
US strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific have killed at least 83 people since early September, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly ordering US military officers to \u201ckill everybody\u201d on board when he directed the first strike. The administration claims it is conducting the strikes to stop drug trafficking from Venezuela, though US and international intelligence has shown the South American country is not involved in trafficking fentanyl to the US and serves as only a transit hub \u2014 but not a major production center \u2014 of cocaine.
The Trump administration has claimed it is engaged in an \u201carmed conflict\u201d with Venezuela, though Congress has not authorized any such conflict. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced war powers resolutions to stop Trump from conducting more attacks on boats and inside Venezuela, where the president has also authorized covert CIA operations and has threatened to launch strikes.
On Thursday, Trump said in a statement to US service members that the military could begin targeting suspected drug traffickers on land \u201cvery soon,\u201d before claiming the country\u2019s airspace was closed Saturday morning.
The US has also sent an aircraft carrier and 10,000 troops to the region in the largest US deployment to Latin America in decades.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week urged civilian aircraft to \u201cexercise caution\u201d when flying over Venezuela due to the \u201cworsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around\u201d the country.
That warning led six airlines to suspend flights to Venezuela, which in turn prompted President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s government to ban the companies, including Turkish Airlines, Spain\u2019s Iberia, Portugal\u2019s TAP, Colombia\u2019s Avianca, Chile and Brazil\u2019s LATAM, and Brazil\u2019s GOL. Maduro accused the airlines of \u201cjoining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government.\u201d
The anti-war group CodePink said Trump\u2019s claim about Venezuelan airspace represented \u201ca dangerous escalation with no legal basis and enormous regional consequences.\u201d
\u201cThe United States has no authority to close another country\u2019s airspace,\u201d said the group. \u201cUnder international law, only Venezuela can determine the status of its skies and enforcing a foreign no-fly zone without UN authorization or host-state consent would constitute an act of war. Even if unenforced, Trump\u2019s declaration functions as an improvised, extralegal no-fly zone created through fear, FAA warnings, and military pressure.\u201d
Trump\u2019s actions in Venezuela in recent weeks \u2014 which come two years after the president explicitly said he wanted to take control of the country\u2019s vast oil reserves \u2014 \u201cform a familiar pattern,\u201d said CodePink.
\u201cManufacture a crisis, then paint a sovereign government as a danger to US interests, and finally use the manufactured urgency to justify military measures that would otherwise be politically impossible,\u201d said the group. \u201cTrying to \u2018close\u2019 the airspace of another country is an act of aggression. It risks flight disruptions, economic panic, and aviation accidents. It is also an attempt to isolate Venezuela without admitting that the US is imposing a de facto blockade. The people of Venezuela have lived with the consequences of Washington\u2019s reckless interventions. They deserve peace, not another manufactured war.\u201d
\u201cDiplomacy, not domination, remains the only path that respects international law and regional sovereignty,\u201d added CodePink. \u201cHands off Venezuela. Hands off Latin America.\u201d
Charles Samuel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Venezuela, emphasized that Trump\u2019s latest move in what he claims is a battle against drug trafficking came a day after he announced a pardon for right-wing former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was convicted of working with drug traffickers.
\u201cThe whole drug trafficking thing is simply a pretext,\u201d Shapiro told Al Jazeera. \u201cIf you look at the US government\u2019s own reports, drugs coming into the United States from Venezuela are minimal, so declaring these people to be \u2018narcoterrorists\u2019 \u2014 it makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n