Donald Trump has ordered “a total and complete” blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro.
The move comes amid an escalating campaign by the Trump administration against Maduro that has included a ramped-up military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, which have killed dozens of people.
Last week, US forces seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast that was traveling across the Caribbean. The tanker was thought to be loaded with about 2m barrels of Venezuela’s heavy crude, according to the New York Times. The Venezuelan government accused the US of “blatant theft” and described the seizure as “an act of international piracy”, further heightening tensions between the two countries.
In a post on social media on Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to escalate the military buildup.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before … today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.”
Trump has ratcheted up actions against the country in recent months. On Tuesday, the Pentagon said it had carried out strikes on three boats it accused of trafficking drugs in the Pacific, killing eight people. Since 2 September, more than 20 strikes have killed at least 95 people, most off the coast of Venezuela.
Several lawmakers have called on the administration to release video footage showing a 2 September attack, but defense secretary Pete Hegseth has refused to do so, calling the video “top secret” and claiming that releasing it to the public violates “longstanding Department of War policy”.
The Trump administration has defended its efforts as a success, saying it has prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and pushed back on concerns that it is stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.
The administration has also said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the US, but Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles appeared to confirm in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is part of a push to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle”.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
