Wednesday’s daring boarding of the sanctioned oil tanker Marinera off the coast of Iceland by U.S. Special Forces brings to four the number of ships seized by the Trump administration as part of its enforcement of an oil embargo against Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the seizure was part of “stabilization” efforts for Venezuela.
Look closer, and a different valence emerges to this story: The whole episode has Cold War overtones, with a hint of Tom Clancy. Taken as part of broader trends, the successful operation suggests Trump has markedly cooled toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This tanker, previously known as the Bella 1, was registered in Panama. It left Iran in late November and sailed to Venezuela. Days after its crew repelled a U.S. Coast Guard attempt to board, the Kremlin hastily allowed it to reflag itself as a Russian vessel, waiving all normal procedures for doing so. The Bella 1 then changed its name to the Marinera and set sail toward Russia.
Once it was officially registered as Russian, the Coast Guard suspended attempts to board. But the Trump administration kept tracking it. This week, U.S. officials said Moscow had deployed a submarine and other naval assets to meet the Marinera and escort it. The Kremlin reportedly asked the U.S. to back off and said it was monitoring the situation “with concern.” To their credit, the Trump administration ignored Moscow and took the ship anyway.
This isn’t the first time Trump has flipped Putin the bird in the past week. “I’m not thrilled with Putin. He’s killing too many people,” Trump icily said during his news conference after Saturday’s snatch-and-grab operation against Nicolás Maduro.
His lack of enthusiasm has something to do with Putin lying to him directly. Shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Mar-a-Lago, Putin told Trump that Ukraine had launched a drone attack on one of his homes. “I was very angry about it,” Trump said. A week later, the president publicly walked that back, a rare acknowledgment he was wrong. “I don’t believe that strike happened,” Trump said, “now that we’ve been able to check.”
Since Trump’s Dec. 28 summit with Zelensky, which at the time looked quite promising, even more substantive progress has been made. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met this week with Ukrainian and European leaders. The document that emerged from their talks shows the U.S. taking the lead on ceasefire monitoring and Europe taking the lead on fielding a multinational ground force to deter future Russian aggression. The self-described Coalition of the Willing has also pledgedto finance the ample arming of Kyiv and even gestured at prepositioning weapons for easy access should war break out again.
These are still merely pledges. None of this has been signed and delivered. Above all, Putin has not agreed to any of this — and likely never will. Trump has shown Putin too much patience, and perhaps he will again, but it’s clear that he will impose real costs on the Russian strongman over his intransigence. That time could soon come again.
The post Trump seizes a tanker and loses patience with Putin appeared first on Washington Post.
