WASHINGTON: US forces on Saturday stopped an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela for the second time in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The pre-dawn operation comes days after Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country and follows the Dec. 10 seizure by American forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that the US Coast Guard with help from the Defense Department stopped the oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela. She also posted on social media an unclassified video of a UShelicopter landing personnel on a vessel called Centuries.
A crude oil tanker flying under the flag of Panama operates under the name and was recently spotted near the Venezuelan coast, according to MarineTraffic, a project that tracks the movement of vessels around the globe using publicly available data. It was not immediately clear if the vessel was under US sanctions.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Noem wrote on X. “We will find you, and we will stop you.”
The action was a “consented boarding,” with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing US forces to board it, according to a US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Pentagon and White House officials did not immediately respond to a requests for comment.
Venezuela’s government in a statement Saturday characterized the US forces’ actions as “criminal” and vowed to not let them “go unpunished” by pursuing various legal avenues, including by filing complaints with the United Nations Security Council.
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically denounces and rejects the theft and hijacking of another private vessel transporting Venezuelan oil, as well as the enforced disappearance of its crew, perpetrated by United States military personnel in international waters,” according to the statement.
Trump following the first tanker seizure, of a vessel named the Skipper, this month vowed that the US would carry out a blockade of Venezuela. It all comes as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Maduro and warned that the longtime Venezuelan leader’s days in power are numbered.
And the president this week demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from US oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.
Trump cited the lost US investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against Maduro, suggesting the Republican administration’s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers already are diverting away from Venezuela.
“We’re not going to be letting anybody going through who shouldn’t be going through,” Trump told reporters earlier this week. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it.”
US oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014, an international arbitration panel ordered the country’s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.
The targeting of tankers comes as Trump has ordered the Defense Department to carry out a series of attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration alleges are smuggling fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the United States and beyond.
At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September.
The strikes have faced scrutiny from US lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.
The Coast Guard, sometimes with help from the Navy, had typically interdicted boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, searched for illicit cargo, and arrested the people aboard for prosecution.
The administration has justified the strikes as necessary, asserting it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels aimed at halting the flow of narcotics into the United States. Maduro faces federal charges of narcoterrorism in the US
The US in recent months has sent a fleet of warships to the region, the largest buildup of forces in generations, and Trump has stated repeatedly that land attacks are coming soon.
Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the US military operations is to force him from power.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this week that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”