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When President Trump told pilots and airlines to “consider the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela to be closed in its entirety,” he did something most politicians only talk about — he grabbed the reins and put American security first. The bluntness of the message was deliberate: after years of half-measures and diplomatic posturing, decisive action is the only language Caracas answers to.
This declaration didn’t come from nowhere; it follows a sustained campaign against drug-running networks operating out of the region, including U.S. strikes on vessels accused of ferrying narcotics that reportedly killed scores of traffickers. If enemies of the republic are staging operations from the sea and using sovereign territory as a shield, the United States cannot continue to behave like a timid neighbor.
Predictably, the international press and timid airlines folded the moment Washington tightened the screws — carriers suspended routes and the FAA warned about heightened military activity, a move that snarled travel and put pressure on Maduro’s cash flows. That disruption is part of strategy: commerce and safe havens are leverage, and when those levers are pulled, the regime in Caracas feels it.
Caracas howled about “colonial threats” and tried to spin the narrative as American aggression, even pausing deportation flights after the confusion — but the Venezuelan government’s theatrics can’t hide the reality that its leaders have partnered with criminal networks for years. The same regime that exports chaos and drugs is now trying to weaponize sympathy; don’t buy it. Some flights have since resumed and negotiations continued, showing how pressure gets results where gentle words never did.
The left’s outrage machine instantly kicked into overdrive, but their sanctimony rings hollow. For years Democrats and elite commentators warned against being “provocative” even as cocaine and fentanyl poured across our borders; now they denounce firmness when it actually protects American lives. That hypocrisy isn’t just annoying — it’s dangerous, because it prioritizes optics over safety.
Make no mistake: closing airspace rhetorically and applying crippling pressure are not acts of war against the Venezuelan people — they are tools to choke off narco-terrorism and to deny Maduro the oxygen of international normalcy. If that means airlines reroute and corrupt officials squawk, so be it; liberty and lives are worth the short-term disruption.
America needs leaders who will act, not lecture. Our policymakers should double down on strong, targeted measures that break trafficking networks, protect our borders, and hold foreign tyrants accountable — and the rest of Washington should either get on board or get out of the way.
