Trump orders blockade on Venezuelan oil tankers, escalating pressure on Maduro regime

Trump orders blockade on Venezuelan oil tankers, escalating pressure on Maduro regime

 JULIA VARNIER 

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has ordered a blockade preventing all “sanctioned oil tankers” from entering Venezuela, escalating pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.

The announcement follows the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast last week, an unusual intervention that came amid a stepped-up U.S. military presence in the region. In a statement posted to his social media platform Tuesday night, Trump accused Venezuela of using oil revenue to fund drug trafficking and other criminal networks, and he signaled that additional military deployments are underway.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump wrote. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us.”

The military buildup has coincided with a series of U.S. strikes on small vessels operating in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. At least 95 people have been killed in 25 documented strikes, a campaign that has prompted bipartisan concern in Congress about the scope and legality of the operations.

Administration officials have defended the effort as a key tool for reducing drug shipments to the United States and rejected suggestions that the campaign oversteps legal boundaries.

While the White House has repeatedly framed the operations as counter-narcotics missions, Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, appeared to link them directly to efforts to pressure Maduro. In an interview with Vanity Fair published Tuesday, Wiles said Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”