Trump Signals Readiness To Seize More Venezuelan Oil Tankers, Raising Tensions Near Coast, White House Confirms

The recent dramatic seizure of a large oil tanker near the Venezuelan coast has shown that the Trump administration’s campaign to put Nicolás Maduro’s government under pressure has now entered a new and aggressive phase.

A White House representative has stated that the President is ready to give the green light for more vessels to be intercepted, especially those linked with the “shadow fleet” that handles the oil trade of sanctioned countries. 

This action follows the unprecedented cooperation of U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations in boarding and seizing the tanker Skipper (formerly Adisa) under a legal warrant, which was claiming its involvement in an illicit oil network supporting terrorist organizations. It has been said that the Skipper was carrying more than a million barrels of Venezuelan crude.

Escalation and Sanctions Enforcement

The U.S. presents this imposition of penalties through the sanctions as a way to stop the flow of money that They call “narcoterrorism” and to support the “rogue and illegitimate” regime of Venezuela.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared the U.S. plan to take the oil confirming that the government would not “stay still and let vessels sanctioned carry black market oil on the oceans.” The laser-like focus of the administration is on ships with undisclosed owners that frequently disguise their nationality and transport oil from Venezuela and Iran (countries with sanctions) to Asia. 

The idea behind this is to make the ‘dark fleet’ pay more in terms of both cost and risk, thus gradually choking the flow of oil that is the lifeline of the country’s economy.

 Global Maritime Tensions

The operation has provoked a strong reaction from Caracas, with the Venezuelan government condemning the action as a “clear case of theft and international piracy,” and claiming that the seizure is a tactic to take over the country’s natural resources.

This threat of more seizures adds a significant amount of tensions to the already strained Maritime Caribbean, where the U.S. army has already made a large deployment, and the number of killings of boats suspected of being drug-smuggling ones has increased. In addition, the seizure has created a panic in the high-risk shipping market, with some charterers reportedly stopping the transport of the Venezuelan Merey crude.

Such aggressive law enforcement actions are considered a gamble of high stakes, trying to cut off the revenue of the Maduro regime while at the same time incurring international condemnation and further escalating the already long diplomatic crisis.

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