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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.”
It is unclear how the Trump administration will impose the blockade against the sanctioned vessels, and whether he will turn to the Coast Guard to interdict vessels like he did last week. The administration has moved thousands of troops and nearly a dozen warships – including an aircraft carrier – to the region recently.
Maduro, speaking at an event on Tuesday evening before Trump’s post, said: “Imperialism and the fascist right want to colonize Venezuela to take over its wealth of oil, gas, gold, among other minerals. We have sworn absolutely to defend our homeland and in Venezuela peace will triumph.”
Venezuela’s government said it rejected Trump’s order of a blockade as a “grotesque threat”, Reuters reported.
“The President of the United States intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the riches that belong to our homeland,” the government said in a statement.
Texas congressman Joaquin Castro, a Democrat, called the blockade “unquestionably an act of war”.
“A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want,” Castro said on social media.
Oil market participants said prices were rising in anticipation of a potential reduction in Venezuelan exports, although they were still waiting to see how Trump’s blockade would be enforced and whether it would extend to include non-sanctioned vessels.
There has been an effective embargo in place after the US seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, with loaded vessels carrying millions of barrels of oil staying in Venezuelan waters rather than risk seizure.
Since the seizure, Venezuelan crude exports have fallen sharply, a situation worsened by a cyberattack that knocked down the administrative systems of PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, this week.
While many vessels picking up oil in Venezuela are under sanctions, others transporting the country’s oil and crude from Iran and Russia have not been sanctioned, and some companies, particularly the US’s Chevron, transport Venezuelan oil in their own authorized ships.
For now, the oil market is well supplied and there are millions of barrels of oil on tankers off the coast of China waiting to offload. If the embargo stays in place for some time, then the loss of nearly a million barrels a day of crude supply is likely to push oil prices higher.
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”.
