Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers Going In and Out of Venezuela

President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, raising the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro’s government a week after U.S. forces seized a tanker off the Venezuelan coast, according to CBS News and NBC News.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.” He accused Maduro’s government of using oil revenue to “finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping,” and demanded that Venezuela return “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

Venezuela’s government rejected the announcement. NBC reported that it accused Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” in what it called “a reckless and grave threat,” and said it would take the issue to the United Nations. CBS quoted the statement calling the blockade a “grotesque threat.” NBC quoted the statement as saying Trump “assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property,” and CBS reported that it accused the administration of seeking to “appropriate the oil, land and minerals of the country through gigantic campaigns of lies and manipulations.”

The step builds on recent actions. The tanker seized last week, the Skipper, was sanctioned in 2022 for alleged ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. Last week the administration also sanctioned three nephews of Maduro, CBS and NBC reported.

The blockade order comes amid the military campaign in the Caribbean. NBC reported that the U.S. has repeatedly conducted deadly strikes on boats it alleges are carrying drugs, and that more than two dozen strikes since early September have killed nearly 100 people, according to the Pentagon. CBS put the number of boats struck at at least 25.

CBS reported that Trump has repeatedly suggested he may order strikes on land-based drug targets in Venezuela and other countries, and NBC quoted him telling reporters Monday, “We’re going to start hitting them on land, which is a lot easier to do, frankly.”