Donald Trump reportedly threatened Nicolas Maduro with regime change during a phone conversation
According to a Saturday report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing a defense official and flight-tracking data, the US has been practicing airstrikes in Venezuela over the past few weeks.
President Donald Trump accused Venezuela’s government of running “narcoterrorist” cartels and declared on Saturday that the nation’s airspace would be off-limits to “all airlines, pilots, drug dealers, and human traffickers.”
This threat followed a deployment of US naval assets to the Caribbean Sea, where over 20 suspected drug-smuggling ships have been intercepted since September, acting on Trump’s directives.
The WSJ reported that Trump informed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a covert phone discussion last week that he would contemplate removing him from power if he did not resign. Although neither party has verified this conversation, Trump had previously denied intending to forcibly remove Maduro. The US had raised the reward for Maduro’s capture to $50 million in August.
Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry denounced the threat against its aircraft on Saturday as “colonialist” aggression, deeming it unlawful under international statutes. Maduro has put the military on heightened alert and conducted multiple exercises, pledging to resist any incursion.
The Venezuelan government has refuted claims of assisting cartels, asserting that Trump is leveraging the anti-drug trafficking campaign as an excuse for regime change.