Trump Threatens To Down Venezuelan Jets As Tensions Grow

Donald Trump on Friday warned that Venezuelan military aircraft would be shot down if they threatened US forces, as Washington deployed F-35 warplanes to Puerto Rico in an escalation of the president’s campaign against drug cartels.

Ten fighter jets will reinforce US naval vessels already stationed in the southern Caribbean, part of Trump’s growing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington accuses of running a drug cartel.

The confrontation has intensified after the Pentagon reported that two Venezuelan military aircraft approached a US Navy ship in international waters Thursday in what it called a “highly provocative” maneuver.

Asked how he would respond to similar incidents, Trump stated: “If they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.”

On Tuesday, US forces destroyed a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean, which Trump linked to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua criminal group and to Maduro himself, leaving 11 people dead.

Sources told AFP that the advanced F-35 jets are being stationed at an airfield in Puerto Rico, a US territory of more than three million people.

Maduro, whose 2024 re-election Washington dismissed as illegitimate, has denounced the American military buildup as “the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years.” He pledged Venezuela’s readiness for “armed struggle in defense of national territory” and mobilized the country’s 340,000-strong military along with more than eight million reservists.

“If Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately enter a period of armed struggle,” Maduro told foreign correspondents.

At the White House, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller branded Maduro an “indicted drug trafficker” and claimed Venezuela is being run by a “narcotrafficking organization.”

The strike on the alleged drug boat marked a sharp escalation, with Washington using military power in a domain typically handled by law enforcement.

Currently, eight US Navy ships are engaged in counter-narcotics missions across Latin America, including three amphibious assault vessels, two destroyers, a cruiser, and a littoral combat ship in the Caribbean, plus another destroyer in the eastern Pacific, a defense official confirmed.

The Pentagon said two “Maduro regime” aircraft approached a US vessel Thursday, describing the move as “highly provocative” and intended to obstruct counter-narcotics operations.

Venezuela retains 15 US-made F-16s acquired in the 1980s, in addition to Russian fighter jets and helicopters.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during a visit to Latin America, defended the tougher US stance against what Washington calls “narcoterrorist” groups.

“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said in Mexico on Wednesday. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat.”

In response, Caracas accused Washington of carrying out extrajudicial killings in Tuesday’s strike.