The Biden administration might wait to shoot down the Chinese balloon over the Atlantic, a senior US official familiar with the situation has told media. Some reportedly consider it to be too risky to try and down it over the continental US.
According to the insider, the United States wants to capture the balloon to study it, and it is working on a plan to shoot it down so that it lands in US territorial waters in order to avoid an international incident. The source added that the action would require a substantial localized airspace shutdown.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden told journalists "we're going to take care of it," when a reporter asked him if the US would shoot the balloon down.
The high-altitude balloon could exit the US East Coast "as early as Saturday morning," a weather model of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggested. The balloon is now believed to be floating over North Carolina.
‘Let Good People of Montana Do Their Thing’: Trump Jr. Says Locals Should Shoot Down Chinese Balloon
3 February 2023, 20:09 GMT
Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Friday that the balloon had "changed its course" and drifted to the central part of the country.
After the airship was discovered over Montana state late Thursday, US officials started calling on the Biden administration to shoot it down.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) urged President Biden to have the balloon shot down "immediately," suggesting his predecessor, Donald Trump, would have done so. Incidentally, Trump and his son, Donald Jr., agreed with MTG's assessment.
While the ex-president wrote on Truth Social: "SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!" his son tweeted: "If Joe Biden and his administration are too weak to do the obvious and shoot down an enemy surveillance balloon perhaps we just let the good people of Montana do their thing. I imagine they have the capability and the resolve to do it all themselves."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon briefed Biden on the incident, and it was determined that the balloon was too high to pose any threat and it would be dangerous - both for humans and equipment - to shoot it down. It was decided to let the balloon continue moving, and to keep tracking its location.
Even though China expressed its regret over the incident and emphasized that the balloon was a civilian airship engaged in scientific research that blew off course due to force majeure, US State Secretary Antony Blinken decided to postpone his Beijing trip, reportedly scheduled for February 5-6. Beijing, for its part, stressed that the US and China never announced any visit by Blinken and Washington "making any such announcement is their own business, and we respect that."