U.S. President Donald Trump will convene top national security officials in the Oval Office on Monday to decide Washington’s next steps on Venezuela, CNN reported, as tensions rise following his warnings over the country’s airspace.
Attendees are expected to include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with White House staff members Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller.
"Out of the effort of transparency, I will confirm that the president will be meeting with his national security team on this subject, and on many matters," White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
The forthcoming meeting comes after Trump confirmed Sunday he held a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro but declined to give details, saying it did not go "well or badly."
Asked whether his recent warning about Venezuelan airspace meant an airstrike is imminent, Trump said: "Don't read anything into it."
Trump recently declared Venezuelan airspace would be "completely shut down," prompting Caracas to demand "unconditional respect" for its airspace.
The U.S. has expanded military operations across Latin America in recent months, deploying Marines, warships, fighter jets, bombers, submarines, and drones.
Last week, Trump said the U.S. will "very soon" take action against Venezuelan drug traffickers on land following 21 maritime attacks since September that killed at least 83 people.
The talks also come as the White House on Monday also defended a U.S. military decision to carry out a follow-up strike on a suspected drug-running boat earlier this year.
Admiral Frank Bradley "worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told journalists.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes," she said.
The two strikes took place on Sept. 2, the first in what has become a months-long campaign of attacks on alleged drug-running boats that experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers.
U.S. media reported last week that an initial September 2 strike left two people alive who were killed in a subsequent attack to fulfill an order from Hegseth.
Trump announced at the time that 11 alleged "narcoterrorists" were killed in "a kinetic strike."
Subsequent strikes that left survivors were followed by search-and-rescue efforts that recovered two people in one case and failed to find another later in October.
Hegseth has also insisted that the strikes are legal, saying in a recent post on X that the military action is "in compliance with the law of armed conflict, and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command."
Trump has deployed the world's biggest aircraft and an array of other military assets to the Caribbean, insisting they are there for counter-narcotics operations.
Regional tensions have flared as a result of the strikes and the military buildup, with Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro accusing Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext for "imposing regime change" in Caracas.
Maduro, whose re-election last year was rejected by Washington as fraudulent, insists there is no drug cultivation in Venezuela, which he says is used as a trafficking route for Colombian cocaine against its will.
