The U.S. military sent two Navy F/A-18 fighter jets soaring over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, a flight path that appears to mark the closest approach by American warplanes to the country’s airspace since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro. Public flight tracking platforms showed the pair moving across the narrow gulf—only around 150 miles at its widest span—and lingering above international waters for more than half an hour.
A U.S. defense official confirmed the flight and described the mission as a “routine training flight,” speaking on condition of anonymity to address sensitive operations. The official said the jets remained in international airspace and would not specify whether they carried weapons. The official compared the flight to earlier U.S. maneuvers intended to demonstrate the range and readiness of American aircraft, adding that the mission was not designed to provoke Venezuela.
While the U.S. has previously deployed long-range B-52 Stratofortress and B-1 Lancer bombers to the broader region, those aircraft traveled along the Venezuelan coastline. There is no public indication that earlier flights brought U.S. planes as close to Venezuelan territory as Tuesday’s F/A-18s.
The overflight comes amid the largest U.S. military presence in the region in decades and following a stretch of deadly strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that U.S. officials say were involved in drug smuggling. Trump has repeatedly signaled that land operations could follow, though he has offered no specifics.
Maduro has accused Washington of using military operations as cover for efforts to remove him from office, a charge U.S. officials deny. But the Trump administration now faces mounting questions from lawmakers about the maritime strike campaign. At least 87 people have been killed in 22 publicly known strikes since early September, including two survivors killed in a follow-up attack while clinging to the wreckage of a destroyed vessel.
Members of Congress have demanded unedited footage of the operations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told congressional leaders Tuesday that he was still evaluating whether the military should release the videos. Hegseth participated in a classified briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and senior national security officials to discuss the widening questions around the campaign.
Also on Tuesday, Adm. Alvin Holsey—who is retiring this week from U.S. Southern Command—met separately with the Republican chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, underscoring the growing concern on Capitol Hill.
Trump has defended the strikes as an essential escalation in what he calls an “armed conflict” against drug cartels, arguing that stronger force is needed to stop narcotics from reaching U.S. shores.
The fighter jet mission also drew attention online. Flightradar24, one of the publicly accessible tracking sites that displayed the jets in real time, said the aircraft became the most watched flights on its platform during the mission.
Venezuela has long asserted that the entire gulf is part of its national territory, a claim that U.S. military officials and legal scholars have dismissed for decades. Washington maintains that the waters traversed by Tuesday’s jets are indisputably international.
The rare U.S. fighter jet flight underscores a moment of escalating tension between Washington and Caracas as the Trump administration’s regional strategy draws intensified scrutiny. Though the Pentagon insists the maneuver was routine, its timing—amid growing political pressure over the boat strikes—suggests Washington may also be signaling its operational reach at a moment when its actions face bipartisan questioning.
The unusually lethal maritime campaign has raised legal and ethical concerns in the U.S. Congress, where lawmakers want clarity about rules of engagement, intelligence thresholds and accountability. Some lawmakers worry the administration’s broad framing of an “armed conflict” with drug cartels could justify expanding military actions without congressional authorization.
For Venezuela, any U.S. military movement feeds long-standing fears of external intervention. Maduro, already isolated internationally, has used the overflights to reinforce his narrative that Washington’s true objective is regime change. The U.S., meanwhile, views the occasional high-visibility flight as a way to reassure regional allies and dissuade adversaries at a time when illicit trafficking networks remain entrenched.
The episode also highlights a shifting balance in the Caribbean and Latin America, where U.S. military activity—once relatively limited—has expanded dramatically on air, sea and land. With Trump’s repeated hints of possible land operations and the Pentagon weighing whether to release strike footage, the region is bracing for potentially sharper geopolitical friction and growing humanitarian questions tied to U.S. targeting decisions.
The Associated Press
