Donald Trump has ordered the immediate reopening of commercial airspace over Venezuela, weeks after US military forces toppled the dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Speaking at the White House during his cabinet’s first meeting of the year, Trump said he had just concluded a telephone conversation with Venezuela’s acting president (and former vice-president), Delcy Rodríguez, in which he informed her of the decision to restore flight access.
“We’re going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela,” Trump told the gathering on Thursday. “American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela and they’ll be safe there.”
The president said he had instructed the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, and Pentagon officials to implement the change before the day’s end. He characterized the security situation in Venezuela as being “under very strong control” after Rodríguez replaced Maduro.
Direct commercial passenger and cargo flights between the US and Venezuela had already been suspended since May 2019, under Trump’s first term, when the Department of Transportation determined conditions in the country posed unacceptable safety and security risks to American carriers, crews and passengers.
In November, as Trump was ramping up pressure on Maduro, he declared that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety”.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) then told pilots to be cautious flying around the country because of heightened military activity, and international airlines began canceling flights to Venezuela.
Trump’s announcement signaled the latest step in a rapid normalization of relations between Washington and Caracas under the interim government, which is mostly composed of Maduro’s former subordinates.
For US oil companies, the opening also represents an opportunity to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, though significant infrastructure investment would probably be required to restore production to previous levels after years of deterioration and underinvestment.
Trump revealed that major US oil companies were already on the ground in Venezuela conducting site assessments for potential operations.
“We have the major oil companies going to Venezuela now, scouting it out and picking their locations, and they’ll be bringing back tremendous wealth for Venezuela and for the United States,” he said.
Rodríguez, once one of Maduro’s closest allies who was formerly responsible for the feared Sebin intelligence agency, has voiced occasional defiance towards Washington while carefully signaling that she is willing to accommodate US demands.
The acting president has moved quickly to reset diplomatic ties with Washington, and is pushing through legislation that Trump has characterized as placing the sector under US oversight.
On Sunday, Rodríguez told a group of oil workers she had had “enough” of Washington’s orders, but on Wednesday the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the US Congress that communications with Venezuela’s new leaders had been “very respectful and productive”.
Earlier this week, Rodríguez said that the United States had agreed to unblock the country’s foreign-held sovereign assets, with the funds designated for healthcare and energy purchases.
American Airlines, which was the last US airline flying to Venezuela when it suspended flights there in March 2019, announced on Thursday that it intended to reinstate nonstop service in the coming months.
