US intercepts second merchant vessel off coast of Venezuela in international waters | US military
On Saturday, US forces intercepted a second commercial ship in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, according to two US officials, the Associated Press reported.
The move comes just days after Donald Trump announced he would impose a “blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting the South American country, and after US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on December 10.
The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity, the AP said.
The development comes after Trump and his advisers refused to rule out the potential for open conflict with Venezuela as his country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, called on his navy to escort oil tankers, challenging the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.
In an interview aired Friday morning, Trump told NBC News that going to war with the Maduro regime is still on the table. “I’m not ruling it out, no,” he said in a phone interview with the channel.
The United States further increased the pressure on Venezuela this week, accusing it of buying U.S. oil and saying the United States was losing investments in the country. “You remember they took away all our energy rights,” Trump said. “They recently took all our oil. We want it back too. They took it, they took it illegally.” On Tuesday, the US president ordered a “total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting Venezuela.
The US military on Thursday carried out its latest deadly attack on a ship it said was smuggling drugs in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people and bringing the death toll to 99 in a campaign of attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats since September.
Maduro claims he wants regime change rather than the US goal of stopping drug trafficking.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum intervened in the dispute on Wednesday, declaring that the United Nations was “nowhere to be seen” and demanding action to “prevent bloodshed.”
