President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, a dramatic escalation in his months-long pressure campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
Such a blockade, which Trump revealed Tuesday evening on Truth Social, would likely devastate Venezuela’s already struggling economy, which depends on overseas oil sales, primarily to China and often on sanctioned vessels.
“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.”
Trump also declared the Venezuelan “regime” a Foreign Terrorist Organization. He accused government officials of using oil to enrich themselves and finance drug terrorism.
The administration last week seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela that was carrying oil from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. The United States imposed sanctions on the Skipper in 2022.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry sent a letter Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council calling the seizure an “act of state piracy.”
U.S. forces on Monday killed eight alleged drug smugglers in three boat strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean, raising the death toll in what Trump administration officials describe as a counternarcotics campaign to at least 95.
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