The US is already fighting a war against Venezuela — in the form of drug traffickers and narco-terrorists, whose poisons kill more Americans in a year than died in Vietnam, Sen. Dave McCormick warned on Sunday.
McCormick (R-Pa.) underscored the thousands of American deaths from drug traffickers while defending President Trump’s declaration Saturday that Venezuela airspace is closed — as ramped up pressure om the regime.
“We have a war that’s coming through fentanyl, through opioids, through cocaine. It killed 100,000 Americans last year. That’s twice the number of people that died in eight years of Vietnam — 4,000 Pennsylvanians,” he told “Fox News Sunday.”
“When President Trump was running, he and I both campaigned on the same thing, which was [to] secure the border, designate the cartels as narco-terrorists, and use our military in a strategic-focused way to destroy this cartel infrastructure,” McCormick added.
“I think that’s what’s happening with Venezuela.”
Trump declared Saturday that “all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers” should “please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”
There were over 105,000 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2023, according to the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 58,000 Americans servicemen died in the Vietnam war.
The White House blames Venezuelan gangs for trafficking illegal opiates and cocaine to the US, but a 2019 DEA report found that most fentanyl — the leading source of American overdose deaths — comes from Mexico, via precursors shipped from China.
Venezuela was one of 23 nations that Trump declared as “major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries” in September — along with China, India, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
It’s still not clear how Trump intends to enforce the no-fly decree.
However, by Sunday afternoon a FlightRadar24 map showed that there were no international planes flying in Venezuelan airspace.
Flights to Aruba and Curacao — near the Venezuelan coast — appeared to be taking the long way around to avoid Venezuela.
Oftentimes, warring nations will move to close another country’s airspace before launching military operations such as massive strikes or an invasion.
The Post reached out to the White House for comment.
Over recent months, Trump and his administration have escalated against Venezuela, launching strikes against alleged drug boats, deploying military assets in the Caribbean, and putting a $50 million bounty on the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.
As part of Operation Southern Spear, a campaign to crack down on drug trafficking in the western hemisphere, the US has deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Caribbean, including 11 ships, over 70 aircraft and nine carrier air wings.
The Secretary of the Navy also framed the fight against Venezuelan drug traffickers as a war.
“Drugs kill more Americans than we’ve ever lost in wars. So I think at the end of the day, the president has correctly identified this as an attack on the country, which it is,” John Phelan said on Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump” Saturday.
Trump has suggested that he intends to hit targets on Venezuela’s soil “very soon.”
“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” Trump told service members during a Thanksgiving call.
Maduro, whom both the Biden and Trump administrations maintain stole his election in 2024, has raged against Trump’s buildup in his backyard.
His government said Saturday it “forcefully rejects” Trump’s declaration about closing Venezuela’s airspace and ripped that as a “colonial threat” meant to undercut his country’s “territorial integrity, aeronautical security and full sovereignty.”
Trump spoke to Maduro earlier this month and broached the possibility of a meeting inside the US amid strained relations, the New York Times reported. Days later, the State Department designated Maduro as the head of the Cartel de los Soles, a foreign terrorist organization.
Despite the escalating military situation in the Caribbean, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) stressed that Trump has been clear he won’t dispatch boots on the ground to the troubled Latin American country.
“No, he’s made it very clear we’re not going to put troops into Venezuela. What we’re trying to do is protect our own shores,” Mullin told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“We’re not going to allow them to continue to use Venezuela as a terrorist country to ship in tons of drugs into the United States and continue to kill our brothers or sisters, our friends and family on the streets of the United States.”
Maduro has led Venezuela since 2013, following the death of Hugo Chávez. Many outside observers view him as a dictator whose regime has been chronically corrupt and carries out human rights abuses.
Venezuela has been battered by one of the highest inflation rates in the world under Maduro’s watch, and its dire economy has fueled a mass emigration that has impacted the US.
