Yeah no he doesn’t get to do that.

“I hereby declare your airspace closed!”

“Backsies!”

Venezuela has reacted angrily to US President Donald Trump’s statement that the airspace around the country should be considered closed.

The country’s foreign ministry called Trump’s comments “another extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people”.

The US does not have legal authority to close another country’s airspace and the Venezuelan statement accused Trump of making a “colonialist threat”.

Colonialist or idiotic. One of those.

Trump wrote on Truth Social: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”

Writing something on a personal social media platform is just that. It has no more force than a tweet about what someone had for lunch.

Furthermore, writing it in all caps is also toothless. It doesn’t become more of a legal order when issued in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

With Trump ratcheting up his threats, some Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress have expressed anger that he has not sought legislative approval. “Trump’s reckless actions towards Venezuela are pushing America closer and closer to another costly foreign war,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer posted on X on Sunday. “Under our constitution, Congress has the sole power to declare war.”

But, of course, many presidents have sneaked around that rule.

War Powers refers to both Congress’ and the President’s Constitutional powers over military or armed conflicts by the United States. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war. The President, derives the power to direct the military after a Congressional declaration of war from Article II, Section 2. This presidential power is titled as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. These provisions require cooperation between the President and Congress regarding military affairs, with Congress funding or declaring the operation and the President directing it. 

Nevertheless, Presidents have engaged in military operations without express Congressional consent. These operations include the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, the Afghanistan War of 2001 and the Iraq War of 2002. However, Congress never explicitly declared war during these operations; therefore, they are not considered official wars by the United States. 

So that works out. Presidents can do wars, they just can’t call them wars. Cool.