In a crazy publication on social networks, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, issued a warning in the midst of military escalation and pressure on Venezuela and the Government of Nicolás Maduro: “To all airlines, pilots, drug traffickers and human traffickers, please consider the airspace over and around Venezuela as completely closed.”
This attempted air blockade constitutes another step in the escalation of illegal aggressions that Washington applies against Venezuela. However, international law experts emphasize that Trump does not have the power to close the airspace of another sovereign country, since that power corresponds only to the State that exercises sovereignty over its territory.
What the United States can do is apply coercive measures to airlines or companies that decide to use said space, but never decree its closure.
The threat comes a week after the US government itself urged airlines to cancel flights due to alleged military activity in the region, and just a day after it was revealed that Trump held a telephone conversation with President Nicolás Maduro, in which the possibility of a face-to-face meeting was even mentioned, according to The New York Times.
Military escalation and illegal blockade
Trump’s announcement is framed in a context of increasing military pressure. Just hours before, the US president had declared that a “land intervention” was being prepared against alleged “narco-terrorist groups”, after a three-month campaign in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific that included 21 attacks and 83 extrajudicial murders.
In his Thanksgiving message to military commanders, Trump once again criminalized the Venezuelan people, accusing Venezuela of “sending poison” to the United States, while justifying the deployment of an aircraft carrier, Air Force bombers and covert action plans in the region.
For its part, the Venezuelan government denounced that this new attempt at an air blockade is part of the strategy of siege and economic war that the United States has systematically imposed, violating international law and the sovereignty of the people.
Trump’s claim to claim the right to close Venezuelan airspace not only lacks legal validity, but also confirms the policy of permanent aggression against Venezuela. Faced with this, the Venezuelan people and government reaffirm that no one can decide over our territory or our sky, and that national sovereignty will continue to be firmly defended.
