Washington: The United States will make a legal bid to keep and use the oil from a tanker it seized off the coast of Venezuela, as Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed solidarity with his Venezuelan counterpart amid the US military campaign.
American Marines, special forces and the Coast Guard stormed a Venezuelan crude oil carrier, Skipper, in a dawn raid on Wednesday – an act the South American country labelled “blatant theft” and international piracy.
A still image from footage of the seizure of the Skipper posted on social media by US Attorney-General Pam Bondi.Credit: AP
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said US forces were now interviewing people on board the tanker, and confirmed the US intended to seize the oil for its own use.
“The vessel is currently undergoing a forfeiture process,” she said. “The vessel will go to a US port, and the United States does intend to seize the oil. However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed.”
Reuters reported the tanker was originally loaded with 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, with about 200,000 offloaded to a different ship, bound for Cuba.
The US first sanctioned the vessel in 2022, saying it was part of a network of so-called ghost tankers smuggling crude oil for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah.
“The United States does intend to seize the oil,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.Credit: AP
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and its economy is reliant on oil production of about a million barrels a day. But it is locked out of global oil markets by US sanctions and sells most of its output to Chinese refiners via a complex network of shadowy intermediaries, many of which are shell companies.
The seizure of the tanker follows more than 20 lethal US strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which the US military says were ferrying drugs on behalf of Venezuelan gangs.
Leavitt said the seizure gave effect to the US’s long-standing sanctions policies, rather than representing an escalation of US efforts to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro or a step towards war with Venezuela. She declined to rule out additional seizures.
“We’re not going to stand by and watched sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narco-terrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.
“Prolonged war is definitely not something this president is interested in. He wants peace. He also wants to see the end of illegal drugs being trafficked into the United States.”
President Donald Trump was vague about future actions yesterday, saying “other things are happening” but declining to say what they were. The US government does not recognise Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. He has been in power since 2013 and claimed victory in sham elections last year.
Putin spoke with Maduro by phone on Thursday to express solidarity with the people of Venezuela and reaffirm his support for the Maduro government’s policies “aimed at protecting national interests and sovereignty amid growing external pressure”, a Kremlin statement said.
The two countries last month entered into a Treaty on Strategic Partnership and Cooperation. “Both sides reaffirmed their mutual commitment to the consistent implementation of joint projects in trade and the economy, energy, finance, culture and humanitarian affairs, and other areas,” the Kremlin said.
Leavitt said Trump would not have been fazed by the Putin-Maduro call.
Venezuela, Russia and Iran commonly use shadow fleet tankers, transshipment and third-party countries to export oil amid crippling US and global sanctions. Trump said yesterday that this ship, the Skipper, was the largest such vessel ever to be seized.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil Pinto called the seizure a “blatant robbery and an act of international piracy, announced publicly by the President of the United States”.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Thursday that “decisive” actions by the US – including the seizure of the oil tanker – had left Maduro’s repressive government at its weakest point.
She spoke after she appeared in public for the first time in about a year, following her arrival in Norway’s capital, Oslo, where her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize award on her behalf on Wednesday.
Trump action’s “have been decisive to reach where we are now, where the regime is significantly weaker,” Machado said. “Because before, the regime thought it had impunity …. Now they start to understand that this is serious, and that the world is watching.”
Machado vowed to return to the country to keep fighting for democracy, but sidestepped questions on whether a US military intervention is necessary to remove Maduro from power.
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