Trump orders blockade of ‘sanctioned oil tankers’ entering Venezuela and leaving the South American country
President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on Venezuela on Tuesday by announcing he was ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering and leaving the South American country.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will only get worse, and the shock they will experience will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”
He then added that he was “ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL entering and leaving Venezuela,” arguing that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government uses oil revenues to finance illicit operations, including “drug-related terrorism.”
The United States has sanctioned three of Maduro’s nephews and repeatedly carried out military strikes against boats from the Caribbean that it says were carrying drugs.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview for part of a two-part profile published Tuesday by Vanity Fair that Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle.”
Tensions further escalated last week when US forces seized an oil tanker in waters near Venezuela.
Trump’s announcement of a blockade could be the prelude to the seizure of new ships. The Skipper, the large oil tanker that the U.S. military seized Wednesday, was a sanctioned vessel that the administration said was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
The Skipper, which was falsely flagged in Guyana, was carrying about 1.8 million barrels of oil, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence firm, which noted in a report posted on its site after the seizure last week that there are several other possible targets.
“There are at least seven other false flag and sanctioned oil tankers, similar to the Skipper, lurking off the coast of Venezuela, making them prime targets for further interventions as the US administration steps up pressure on the Maduro government by targeting its oil revenues,” the report said.
Trump also said U.S. operations against suspected drug traffickers would soon expand to land.
“We’re going to start hitting them on the ground, which is a lot easier to do, frankly,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
“This is a direct military threat to the United States of America. They are trying to drug our country,” he said.
Democrats have raised concerns about military strikes, particularly after the White House confirmed that Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who then headed Joint Special Operations Command, ordered a second strike against a boat from Venezuela that was allegedly carrying narcotics on September 2. The second strike killed survivors of an earlier strike that day, and some lawmakers suggested it could constitute a war crime.
After a classified briefing Tuesday, some Democratic senators said video of the strike should be played to the full chamber.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that he would share video of the second strike with some congressional committees on Wednesday, but that he had no plans to make the video public.
Since early September, more than two dozen strikes against suspected drug-trafficking boats by U.S. forces in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean have killed nearly 100 people, according to the Pentagon.
