Donald Trump on November 29 said that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
His government accused Trump of making a “colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the South American country’s sovereignty.
The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, and it was unclear whether he was announcing a new policy or simply reinforcing the messaging around his campaign against Maduro, which has involved multiple strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean on small boats accused of ferrying drugs as well as a buildup of naval forces in the region. More than 80 people have been killed in such strikes since early September.
The convicted felon and Republican president addressed his call for an aerial blockade to “Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers,” rather than to Maduro.
Venezuela’s government said it “forcefully rejects” Trump’s claim about closing the airspace and that it was a “colonial threat” intended to undermine the country’s “territorial integrity, aeronautical security and full sovereignty.”
The Foreign Ministry said “such declarations constitute a hostile, unilateral and arbitrary act.”
The statement also said that U.S. immigration authorities had unilaterally suspended biweekly deportation flights of Venezuelan migrants. Following negotiations between the two governments, more than 13,000 Venezuelans have been deported to Venezuela this year on dozens of chartered flights, the latest of which arrived on November 28 in Caracas, the capital, according to flight-tracking data.
International airlines began to cancel flights to Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration told pilots to be cautious flying around the country because of heightened military activity.
The FAA’s jurisdiction is generally limited to the United States and its territories. The agency does routinely warn pilots about the dangers of flying over areas with ongoing conflicts or military activity around the globe, as it did earlier in November with Venezuela. The FAA works with other countries and the International Civil Aviation Organization on international issues.
Under international aviation law, Trump’s declaration carries virtually no legal weight outside the United States. The 1944 Chicago Convention on civil aviation, which both the United States and Venezuela have ratified, states that each country exercises “complete and exclusive sovereignty” over the airspace above its territory.
In practical terms, that means only Venezuela — or the U.N. Security Council acting under its charter — can decide whether Venezuelan skies are open, restricted, or closed. Legal and advocacy groups noted that “the United States has no authority to close another country’s airspace” and said Trump’s language conflicts with that basic rule.
U.S. law also stops short of what Trump claimed. The Federal Aviation Administration can bar U.S. airlines and other U.S. operators from flying over certain regions when it judges the risk too high, and it has repeatedly done so over conflict zones in places such as Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, and Haiti.
Those emergency orders and notices to airmen apply to aircraft and airspace under U.S. jurisdiction. They do not legally shut down a foreign country’s skies for other nations’ airlines.
Aviation law specialists say they are not aware of a previous case in which a U.S. president has declared another country’s airspace “closed in its entirety” without that state’s consent or a U.N. mandate.
Several have warned that trying to enforce such a declaration against foreign carriers would effectively amount to imposing a unilateral no-fly zone in Venezuelan airspace, a step they say would be seen as an act of aggression and could be treated as an act of war.
Trump’s administration has sought to ratchet up pressure on Maduro. The U.S. government does not view Maduro as the legitimate leader of the oil-rich but increasingly impoverished South American nation, and he faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.
U.S. forces have conducted bomber flights near Venezuela, and the USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s most advanced aircraft carrier, was sent to the area. The Ford rounds off the largest buildup of U.S. firepower in the region in generations. With its arrival, the “Operation Southern Spear” mission includes nearly a dozen Navy ships and about 12,000 sailors and Marines.
There are bipartisan calls for greater oversight of the U.S. military strikes against vessels in the region after “The Washington Post” reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of the September 2 attack on suspected drug smugglers.
A coalition of former judge advocates, organized after Hegseth removed JAG officers from several branches earlier this year, said the allegations point to a breakdown in military legal safeguards.
In a statement, the group said that ordering or carrying out the killing of survivors, if confirmed, would qualify as murder or a war crime. The former JAGs said the purge of military legal personnel had dismantled “guardrails” that would have prevented such actions. Their statement notably referred to the Pentagon by its formal name, not the “Department of War” label that Trump and Hegseth have been promoting.
The unusual moves by lawmakers, including several Republicans, suggest a shift in how some members of Congress are weighing Trump’s influence. Josh Marshall, founder of “Talking Points Memo,” wrote that the willingness to confront the White House reflects a perception that Trump “seems weak” and that “no one wants to back a weak horse.”
Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and its top Democrat, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, said in a joint statement late November 28 that the committee “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
Trump’s team has weighed both military and nonmilitary options with Venezuela, including covert action by the CIA.
Trump has publicly floated the idea of talking to Maduro. “The New York Times” reported on November 28 that Trump and Maduro had spoken.
The White House has repeatedly portrayed Trump’s administration as operating with “full transparency,” but officials offered no details about the call or the substance of the outreach, underscoring the gap between that claim and the limited information released.
