U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a sweeping naval blockade targeting all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, aiming to cripple the regime’s finances.
On Truth Social, he designated Nicolás Maduro’s government a foreign terrorist organisation for stealing U.S. assets and engaging in “Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking.”
“Therefore, today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela,” Trump stated. He claimed Venezuela sits “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America”, set to “only get bigger” and prove “like nothing they have ever seen before.”
The order follows the U.S. seizure of tanker Skipper off Venezuela’s coast for “illicit oil shipping,” which Maduro called a crew kidnapping and ship theft.
Fresh sanctions hit six more vessels, Maduro relatives, and linked firms last week, amid ongoing U.S. military strikes killing at least 90 in anti-drug operations since September. Warships and the USS Gerald Ford now dominate the Caribbean north of Venezuela.
Caracas decried the “grotesque threat” and accused Washington of resource theft, while Trump rejected Maduro’s immunity pleas and upped his bounty to $50 million.
Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro called the blockade “unquestionably an act of war,” with Congress voting Thursday to end hostilities.