With ‘blockade’ against tankers, Trump escalates Venezuela standoff
President Donald Trump’s declaration on social media of a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela is a striking military move that increases U.S. pressure on the country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro.
On the face of it, the president’s December 16 announcement was a veritable playbook for gunboat diplomacy. “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in South American history,” Mr. Trump wrote. “It will only get worse, and the shock they will experience will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”
Some analysts warn that if the shock is as big as Mr. Trump promises, it could push the food-insecure state toward famine and trigger a new wave of migration out of the country. Oil is crucial to Venezuela’s economy, accounting for around 90% of its exports and more than half of its government revenue.
Why we wrote this
Efforts to prevent black market oil tankers from entering or leaving Venezuela indicate that U.S. goals extend beyond the narcotics trade to include pressure on Maduro’s regime.
It is precisely because blockades deprive countries of access to goods and trade, which can lead to disastrous consequences, that they are considered acts of war.
Mr. Trump’s latest show of force is not technically a blockade, but the administration appears eager to show it is ready for combat. It has deployed bombers and warships, including the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, to the Caribbean.
On December 10, the United States tracked down and obtained a federal warrant to seize the Skipper, a sanctioned tanker carrying Venezuelan and Iranian oil. Mr. Trump says he anticipates the United States will keep the ship’s cargo.
On Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security and with assistance from the Department of Defense, seized a second oil tanker, recently moored off the coast of Venezuela. On Sunday, the United States was in pursuit of a third tanker that U.S. authorities say was operating under a false flag.
These latest moves reinforce the sense that the president’s intensifying military action in the Caribbean is aimed not only at combating drug trafficking, as the administration has previously emphasized, but also at forcing Mr. Maduro to relinquish power. The two goals are linked for Mr. Trump, analysts say, as administration officials label Mr. Maduro a drug lord and declare his regime a foreign terrorist organization.
If Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to oust Mr. Maduro succeeds, it would raise more questions, analysts say, including whether the United States can foster the rise of an opposition-controlled government. Meanwhile, the administration’s anti-drug campaign continues: The US military last week struck two more boats suspected of carrying drugs, bringing to 104 the death toll from the campaign that began in September.
“The idea is to use every lever available,” including cracking down on narcotics trafficking as well as the oil black market, “to apply pressure in more and more areas to convince Maduro to go,” says Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank and a retired naval officer who served as special assistant to the chief of naval operations.
U.S. Attorney General/Reuters
Mr. Maduro denounced what he called “warmongering threats” from the United States. He also ordered his Navy to begin escorting ships carrying oil – a more demonstrative move because they are legal vessels that are not covered by the Trump administration’s latest executive order.
Still, analysts say, it increases the risk of escalation in the Caribbean and raises the possibility that the U.S. military could also become more involved, raising questions about whether Venezuela and the United States are heading toward war.
Blockade or quarantine?
The last widely recognized U.S. blockade was during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, to prevent the Soviet Union from delivering nuclear missiles to the island.
Although it was then in practice a blockade, the United States avoided the term, instead using the term “quarantine” to avoid the legal implications of an act of war. Today, Mr. Trump accepts it.
“The blockade seems more forceful and warlike,” says Mr. Clark, who also led strategy development for the Navy commander’s internal think tank. “But in reality it will be more like a quarantine, as they selectively target specific tankers that have been involved in illegal oil trafficking.”
The blockade as defined by Mr. Trump appears to apply only to oil tankers that are part of an international “black fleet” of ships already under U.S. sanctions.
The question now is how much of Venezuela’s oil trade will be stopped, Mr. Clark says. “Are they selectively going after tankers that have been pre-identified as bad actors – meaning you only go after a few tankers and it’s very targeted – or do they end up having some sort of broader inspection regime?
The second seized tanker was not under sanctions, suggesting the administration is trying to cast a wider net.
There are also questions about whether the U.S. military, under the control of the Pentagon, or the Coast Guard, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, will carry out the shutdown and inspection (which could result in more tankers being trapped in the U.S. net).
What is clear is that the ability to track ships is improving. The location of the Skipper, the tanker seized on December 10, was identified using satellites and special technologies “despite attempts by its operator to falsify its position,” said an analysis by Clayton Seigle, senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Sanctions could also affect China and Russia. Introducing tanker seizures to Washington’s toolbox, Seigle said, “will certainly raise eyebrows at China, whose oil imports from sanctioned suppliers, Russia, Iran and Venezuela, make up more than a quarter of its import supply chain.”
Military confrontation may not be inevitable
The same goes for Russia’s shadow fleet, which could have positive effects, from Ukraine’s perspective, on Moscow’s war in the besieged country.
Indeed, Russia “relies on a sprawling ghost fleet” of aging tankers with opaque ownership structures to maintain its oil supply despite Western sanctions, Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in a Dec. 17 analysis.
The Trump administration’s latest seizure actions show “that Washington is increasingly willing to treat sanctions evasion not only as a financial violation, but also as a maritime security issue,” Dr. Grigas said. This could have a negative impact on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
It could also create a deterrent effect, she added, by “demonstrating that ghost fleets are visible, trackable and vulnerable.”
In Venezuela, although U.S. tanker seizures could seriously harm the economy, the pressing question, from the Trump administration’s perspective, appears to be whether it will be enough to topple the current regime — whether Maduro will leave on his own or not. And, failing that, the question of whether American troops on the ground will be the next step.
Most analysts consider a U.S. ground invasion unlikely. Meanwhile, if stopping the flow of tankers makes conditions on the ground so dire that Mr. Maduro leaves in exchange for lifting the embargo, that would not necessarily mean success for the Venezuelan opposition, some analysts say.
If Mr. Maduro’s tenacious hold on power were to be broken, “the regime itself would do its best to persist,” says Kurt Weyland, a political scientist at the University of Texas.
Many of those who worked closely with Mr Maduro are corrupt and have participated in human rights abuses, he adds. “None of them can dare to lose power because of the threat of international prosecution. »
That said, despite America’s growing presence in the Caribbean, some analysts also feel it might as well end without a major military confrontation.
“I predict it will eventually go away,” Dr. Weyland says. “The United States is not interested in a major military conflict. »
Whitney Eulich in Mexico contributed reporting to this article.
