The US president has said his country will take action on land against alleged drug trafficking networks in Venezuela \u2018very soon\u2019<\/p>\n
Airspace \u201cabove and surrounding\u201d Venezuela is now closed, US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday. Trump has repeatedly threatened military action against the country, citing its alleged involvement in the illicit drug trade, a charge Venezuela\u2019s leadership has consistently denied.
\nTrump made the announcement in a caps-heavy post on Truth Social without elaborating how far the \u201csurrounding\u201d airspace spans beyond the South American country\u2019s borders.\u00a0
\n\u201cTo all airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers, please consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety,\u201d the US president wrote.
\nSince early September, the US military has carried out over 20 strikes on small boats in international waters in the Caribbean and beyond, claiming the vessels are being used by drug smugglers. More than 80 people are believed to have been killed in the attacks, according to media reports.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Trump and Maduro spoke in secret phone call \u2013 NYT<\/p>\n
In mid-November, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the launch of Operation Southern Spear against \u201cnarcoterrorists\u201d in the region. The US military brought over a dozen warships and some 15,000 personnel into the region as part of the operation.
\nTrump has repeatedly accused Caracas of aiding \u201cnarcoterrorists,\u201d alleging that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is personally leading a major drug trafficking organization. Recently, Washington also increased its bounty on Maduro to a massive $50 million.
\nMaduro has repeatedly denied allegations of being somehow involved in illicit narcotics trafficking, insisting the claims were merely part of Washington\u2019s efforts to topple him.
\nThe Venezuelan president has warned Washington against launching \u201ca crazy war,\u201d placing the country\u2019s military on high alert and staging a series of exercises in response to the US military buildup in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US president has said his country will take action on land against alleged drug trafficking networks in Venezuela \u2018very soon\u2019 Airspace \u201cabove and surrounding\u201d Venezuela is now closed, US…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}