The US military flew two fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, marking the closest American warplanes have come to the South American country’s airspace since the start of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign.
Public flight tracking websites showed the U.S. Navy F/A-18 jets spending more than 30 minutes over water in the Gulf, a body of water about 150 miles wide at its broadest point. A US defence official confirmed the jets conducted a “routine training flight” in the area.
The official, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of military operations, could not confirm whether the jets were armed but noted they remained in international airspace. He described the training flight as similar to previous exercises designed to demonstrate the reach of US planes and emphasised it was “not meant to be provocative.”
The military has previously deployed B-52 Stratofortress and B-1 Lancer bombers to the region, but those planes flew along the Venezuelan coast rather than approaching as closely as the F/A-18 jets did on Tuesday.
The flights come amid the US military’s largest regional presence in decades and a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. President Donald Trump has threatened land attacks, though locations have not been disclosed.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro maintains the US military operations aim to remove him from office. Meanwhile, lawmakers have increased scrutiny of the boat strikes, which have killed at least 87 people across 22 known strikes since September, including a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to wreckage.
Lawmakers are seeking unedited strike footage, but Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday he is still considering whether to release it. Hegseth provided a classified briefing alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior security officials.
The same day, Adm. Alvin Holsey, soon to retire from US Southern Command, spoke separately with the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Trump has defended the operations as necessary to curb drug trafficking and labelled the situation an “armed conflict” with cartels.
Flightradar24 reported the jets were the most tracked flights on its site at the time. Venezuela claims the Gulf is part of its national territory, though this has been disputed by US legal and military authorities for decades.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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