Trump says airlines should consider Venezuelan airspace closed

Trump says airlines should consider Venezuelan airspace closed

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Trump says airlines should consider Venezuelan airspace closed. US President Donald Trump has suggested that the airspace over and around Venezuela be closed.

His administration is ramping up pressure on the South American country that has the world’s largest aircraft carrier and 15,000 troops stationed there. Well, earlier I spoke to former US ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro, and I asked

what President Trump hopes to achieve with the military posture. The goal is to force Nicolas Maduro out of office and, from President Trump’s perspective, ideally force him out in the best of all worlds.

And if not using US force, then ground troops in Venezuela. So that turns up the heat on Venezuela and Maduro. Why now? Why pressure Nicolas Maduro to leave office now? Well,

That’s a good question. Um, Trump is trying, from my perspective, and he hasn’t consulted me. Um, he's using drugs as an excuse to force it out.

Venezuela is not a major source of drugs coming into the United States, and whatever drugs come out of Venezuela, Colombia transits Venezuela, is manufactured in Venezuela, and it's cocaine, and so now I think

that there are two reasons for that. One is that there are no Venezuelans who are American citizens. There are a lot of Venezuelans who live in the United States, and they are cocaine. Both of which are very concentrated in the state of Florida.

They voted overwhelmingly for candidate Trump in last year's election and think they are seeing this as a kind of comeback.

I mean, it's very important to them. Um, and there's a secondary issue,  and that is that there are 700,000 Venezuelans who are not here under the United States.

Temporary protected status is too dangerous for them to go home. Mom and Trump and his people would love to send all 700,000 Venezuelans back to Venezuela

And the way to do that is that it's a safe country. It's okay to go back. We're not sending you back into danger. We're sending you back to a country that needs to be rebuilt.

Yeah. Ambassador, you know, we can't escape the parallels of the US efforts to stabilize Panama under President George W. Bush. What does it take to change the regime in Venezuela?

Well, Panama is a small country with a population of 4 million. Venezuela had a population of 32 million before these Venezuelans started fleeing the country. Oh, Venezuela has an army and an air force, and a navy

which you would think are pretty degraded. I don't know if they're getting spare parts for the Russian planes that they have, and if they have the money to properly train their troops

And they're a regional power that would be up against a global superpower. Um, and that's why you see Trump increasing the pressure on Maduro to leave the country. Um, because there's no world

in which Venezuela can defeat the United States, right? So, let's just say there was a U.S. military intervention. How do you think the whole South American region would react?

How would South America's neighbors react? Oh gosh. Well, they'd be confused. I mean, the good news for Latin American countries is foreign intervention. National sovereignty is important. He said,

Maduro has no friends in Latin America outside of Cuba and Nicaragua. I mean, none, zero. Um, and countries literally thousands of kilometers away from neighboring Colombia, to Mexico, to Chile,

are being destabilized by the millions of Venezuelan immigrants fleeing Venezuela or being allowed to work in their countries or in their countries

And others are not, who are putting too much strain on the school system and the health system. So, on the one hand, they are against military intervention and the violation of sovereignty,

but on the other hand, they would be happy to see Maduro go. Do you think Americans would support military intervention in Venezuela? Well, that's a good question.

Also, um, Trump's support base, the MAGA part of Trump's support base, is America First, as I'm sure you've heard time and time again. And so, sending the US military into Venezuela,

I think, will create some real problems in the first part of the US base. Mom, and that's why they're going back to

where the West started, that's why they would like for Maduro to give up and let go of the truth to respond to this pressure.