Trump orders blockade of all ‘sanctioned oil tankers’ into Venezuela

Trump’s escalation comes after US forces last week seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, an unusual step that followed the buildup of military forces in the region. In a social media post Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump claimed that Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to continue the military buildup until the country gave away American oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the United States had a claim.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform. “It will only get worse, and the shock for them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until such time as they return to the United States of America all the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.”

Pentagon officials referred all questions related to the position to the White House.

The Venezuelan government press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But before Trump’s announcement on Tuesday, Maduro praised Venezuela for “proving that it is a strong country” in the face of US pressure.

“Venezuela has 25 weeks to denounce, confront and defeat a multidimensional aggressive campaign ranging from psychological terrorism to the piracy of the pirates who attacked the oil tanker,” Maduro told state television on Tuesday.

He added: “We swore to defend our homeland, and that peace and common happiness would triumph on this land.”

This buildup was accompanied by a series of military strikes on boats in international waters in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. The campaign, which has attracted bipartisan scrutiny among US lawmakers, has led to the deaths of at least 95 people in 25 known raids on ships.

Trump has said for weeks that the United States will take its campaign beyond the water and begin strikes on land.

The Trump administration has defended the strikes as successful, saying they prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and pushed back on concerns that they cross the bounds of legitimate war.

The Trump administration has said the campaign aims to stop drugs heading to the United States, but Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, appeared to confirm in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine published on Tuesday that the campaign is part of a campaign to oust Maduro.

Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries,” Wells said.

Tuesday night’s announcement appears to have had a similar goal.

Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels per day, has long relied on oil revenues as the lifeblood of its economy.

Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude oil into global supply chains.

State-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, known as PDVSA, has been blocked from entering global oil markets due to US sanctions. It sells most of its exports at a deep discount on the black market in China.

About 850,000 barrels of a daily production of 1 million barrels are being exported, said Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston. He said 80% of that goes to China, 15% to 17% goes to the United States through Chevron, and the rest goes to Cuba.

In October, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro had offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to try to avoid mounting pressure from the United States.

“He laid it all out,” Trump said at the time. “Do you know why? Because he doesn’t want to mess with the United States.”

It was not immediately clear how the United States plans to activate what Trump described as a “comprehensive and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.”

But the US Navy has 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier and several amphibious assault ships, in the area.

These ships carry a wide range of aircraft, including helicopters and V-22 Ospreys. In addition, the Navy operates a few P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in the area.

Altogether, these assets provide the military with a significant ability to monitor maritime traffic coming into and out of the country.

Trump said in his post that “the Venezuelan regime has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” but it was not clear what he was referring to.

The FTO designation has historically been reserved for non-state actors that do not enjoy the sovereign immunities granted by treaties or UN membership.

In November, the Trump administration announced that it was designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. The term Cartel de los Soles originally referred to Venezuelan army officers involved in drug trafficking, but it is not a cartel per se.

Governments that US administrations seek to sanction for funding, inciting, or tolerating extremist violence are typically designated as “state sponsors of terrorism.”

Venezuela is not on that list.

In rare cases, the United States has designated an element of a foreign government as a “foreign terrorist organization.” In its first term, the Trump administration did this with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an arm of the Iranian government, which has already been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.

___

Associated Press writers Konstantin Torobin and Matt Lu in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.