What to Know
- The Trump administration plans to grab a second airplane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ’s authorities that’s presently within the Dominican Republic.
- U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to announce the seizure on Thursday throughout a go to to Santo Domingo, the final cease of his five-nation tour of Latin America, in response to a U.S. official accustomed to the matter and a State Division doc obtained by The Related Press.
- Finishing up the seizure required that Rubio log off on a international assist freeze waiver request to pay greater than $230,000 in storage and upkeep charges. It additionally required approval by the U.S. Division of Justice.
The Trump administration plans to grab a second airplane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ’s authorities that’s presently within the Dominican Republic.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to announce the seizure on Thursday throughout a go to to Santo Domingo, the final cease of his five-nation tour of Latin America, in response to a U.S. official accustomed to the matter and a State Division doc obtained by The Related Press.
Finishing up the seizure required that Rubio log off on a international assist freeze waiver request to pay greater than $230,000 in storage and upkeep charges. It additionally required approval by the U.S. Division of Justice.
That waiver request, submitted early final week, has been authorized and Rubio is anticipated to make the announcement at what the State Division has described publicly as solely a “legislation enforcement engagement.”
The airplane is a Dassault Falcon 200 that has been utilized by Maduro and high aides, together with his vp and protection minister, to journey the world, together with visits to Greece, Turkey, Russia and Cuba, in what Washngton says are violations of U.S. sanctions, in response to the doc.
The seizure of the airplane comes only a week after President Donald Trump’s envoy for particular missions, Richard Grenell, visited Caracas and met with Maduro to debate the repatriation of Venezuelan nationals who illegally entered the USA. Grenell returned with six Individuals who had been detained in Venezuela.
The U.S. seized one other of Maduro’s planes from the Dominican Republic in September 2024.
On the time, the U.S. Justice Division mentioned Maduro associates in late 2022 and early 2023 used a Caribbean-based shell firm to cover their involvement within the buy of the airplane — a Dassault Falcon 900EX valued at $13 million — from an organization in Florida.
Associated to Rubio’s first cease on his journey, the U.S. State Division mentioned late Wednesday on X that the Panamanians had agreed to permit U.S. warships to transit the Panama Canal with out cost.
However Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino later denied that, saying Thursday he had instructed U.S. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth a day earlier that he may neither set the charges to transit the canal nor exempt anybody from them and that he was stunned by the U.S. State Division’s assertion suggesting in any other case.
The division had no speedy remark Thursday.
The charges had been one focus of President Donald Trump’s complaints concerning the canal, which he has threatened to retake from Panama except Panama severely limits Chinese language affect within the space.
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Related Press author Alma Solís in Panama Metropolis contributed to this report.
