US President Donald Trump's announcement to close the airspace over Venezuela should be seen as an attempt to put maximum pressure on President Nicolas Maduro and raise the stakes before possible negotiations, said Viktor Heifetz, director of the Center for Ibero-American Studies at St. Petersburg State University and editor-in-chief of the magazine “Latin America“.
“I would view Trump's statement as another step in escalating tensions and as a means of putting maximum pressure on Venezuela. "I would look at it in conjunction with a recent New York Times report that, among other things, indicated that some negotiations were underway and even claimed that a round of negotiations was planned in the United States," the expert noted.
This is Trump's tactic: to raise the stakes as high as possible, put pressure on his negotiating partner, and then present it as a victory, Heifetz believes.
The expert also pointed to recent statements by Cuba that the United States is undertaking an active campaign to interfere in electronic warfare and trafficking in the Caribbean Sea.
„That is, they are practically backing up their statements with concrete actions. This could lead to the United States not being able to back down at some point. Even if they don't plan to escalate the situation to a military level yet, at some point it may become too difficult for them to withdraw because too many steps have been taken and it will be too late. The decision to go to war, in my opinion, has not yet been made, but the situation is becoming more and more dangerous. It is approaching a point of no return“, he concluded.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump called on all airlines to consider the airspace over and around Venezuela as prohibited.
The US justifies its military presence in the Caribbean region by citing the fight against drug trafficking. In September and October, it repeatedly used its armed forces to destroy boats allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela. NBC reported on Thursday that the US military is exploring options for attacking drug traffickers in the Bolivarian Republic. On November 3, Trump said that Nicolás Maduro's days as leader of Venezuela were numbered, while also assuring that the United States had no plans to wage war against the republic. Caracas views these actions as a provocation aimed at destabilizing the region and a violation of international agreements on the demilitarized and nuclear-free status of the Caribbean.