Trump orders blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela | Donald Trump
Donald Trump has increased pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
The move comes amid the Trump administration’s escalating campaign against Maduro, which has included increasing the military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on ships in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela that have killed dozens of people.
Last week, US forces seized an oil tanker sailing in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. The tanker was thought to be loaded with approximately 2 million barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude oil. New York Times. The Venezuelan government accused the US of “blatant theft” and described the seizure as “an international act of piracy”, further increasing tensions between the two countries.
In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump claimed Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to increase military reinforcements.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump said on social media platform Truth Social. “It will get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before…today, I am ordering the COMPLETE AND COMPLETE BLOCKING OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS entering and exiting Venezuela.”
It’s unclear how the Trump administration will enforce the blockade of sanctioned ships and whether it will turn to the Coast Guard to ban the ships, as it did last week. The administration recently dispatched thousands of soldiers and nearly a dozen warships, including an aircraft carrier, to the region.
Speaking at an event held on Tuesday evening before Trump’s post, Maduro said: “Imperialism and the fascist right want to colonize Venezuela to seize the riches of oil, gas and gold, among other minerals. We swore that we would definitely defend our homeland, and peace will triumph in Venezuela.”
Oil market participants said prices had risen in anticipation of a potential drop in Venezuelan exports but were still waiting to see how Trump’s blockade would be implemented and whether it would be extended to non-sanctioned ships.
After the United States seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, an effective embargo was imposed, with loaded ships carrying millions of barrels of oil remaining in Venezuelan waters rather than risking being seized.
Since the seizure, Venezuelan crude exports have fallen sharply; This was exacerbated this week by a cyberattack that brought down the administrative systems of Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA.
While many ships collecting oil in Venezuela are under sanctions, no sanctions have been imposed on other ships carrying the country’s oil and crude oil from Iran and Russia, and some companies, especially the US Chevron, transport Venezuelan oil with their own authorized ships.
For now, the oil market is well supplied, with millions of barrels of oil in tankers waiting to be unloaded off the coast of China. If the embargo continues for some time, the loss of crude oil supply of approximately one million barrels per day is likely to raise oil prices.
Trump has stepped up his actions against the country in recent months. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it attacked three boats in the Pacific that it accused of drug smuggling, killing eight people. At least 95 people have been killed in more than 20 attacks since September 2, most of them off the coast of Venezuela.
Many lawmakers called on the administration to release video footage showing the September 2 attack, but defense secretary Pete Hegseth refused to do so, calling the video “top secret” and claiming that releasing it to the public violated “longstanding War Department policy.”
The Trump administration has defended its efforts as successful, saying it has prevented the drugs from reaching America’s shores, and has pushed back on concerns that it is expanding the legal battle.
The administration has also said the campaign is aimed at stopping drugs flowing into the United States, but Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, confirmed in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is part of an effort to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle.”
