The US military on Wednesday seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, marking a sharp escalation in tensions between Washington and Caracas. Bloomberg called the action a “serious escalation,” warning the seizure could deter shippers from handling Venezuelan cargoes and further restrict the country’s ability to export oil.
A Trump administration official described the operation to Bloomberg as a “judicial enforcement action on a stateless vessel” that had been docked in Venezuela. President Donald Trump later touted the move at a White House meeting with business leaders, calling the tanker the “largest one ever seized.”
Progressive group Just Foreign Policy condemned the seizure as an “illegal US move to take control of Venezuela’s natural resources and strangle the economy,” warning that worsening economic conditions could put millions of civilians at risk. The tanker seizure is one element of a broader pattern of aggressive US actions targeting Venezuela under the Trump administration.
Since September, the administration has carried out a series of killings of people aboard boats in the Caribbean and Pacific off Venezuela. US officials say those targeted were drug smugglers and have accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading an international trafficking network known as the Cartel de los Soles. Many experts, however, say they have seen no evidence that such an organization formally exists.
Trump has further escalated rhetoric and measures, declaring Venezuela’s airspace “closed in its entirety” despite lacking legal authority to enforce such a decree, and hinting at potential strikes against alleged traffickers on Venezuelan soil.
This article originally published by Common Dreams is republished under a Creative Commons license.
