United States President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in a move that seemed designed to place a tighter chokehold on the South American country’s economy.
Trump’s escalation comes after U.S. forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast, an unusual move that followed a buildup of military forces within the region. In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to proceed the military buildup until the country gave the U.S. oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the U.S. had a claim.
“Venezuela is totally surrounded by the most important Armada ever assembled within the History of South America,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform. “It can only get greater, and the shock to them will likely be like nothing they’ve ever seen before — Until such time as they return to america of America all the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Pentagon officials referred all questions on the post to the White House.
Venezuela’s government released an announcement Tuesday accusing Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South American country.
“On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property,” the statement said of Trump’s post.
“Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its riches. The President of america intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”
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Maduro’s government, in keeping with the statement, plans to denounce the situation before the United Nations.
The U.S. buildup has been accompanied by a series of military strikes on boats in international waters within the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The campaign, which has drawn bipartisan scrutiny amongst U.S. lawmakers, has killed at the least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels.
Trump has for weeks said that the U.S. will move its campaign beyond the water and begin strikes on land.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as successful, saying they’ve prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and pushed back on concerns that they’re stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.
The Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the U.S., but Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles appeared to substantiate in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is a component of a push to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to maintain on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”
Tuesday night’s announcement appeared to have the same aim.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenue as a lifeblood of its economy.
For the reason that Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
The state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., commonly often called PDVSA, has been locked out of worldwide oil markets by U.S. sanctions. It sells most of its exports at a steep discount within the black market in China.
Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston, said about 850,000 barrels of the 1 million every day production is exported. Of that, he said, 80 per cent goes to China, 15 per cent to 17 per cent goes to the U.S. through Chevron Corp., and the rest goes to Cuba.
In October, Trump appeared to substantiate reports that Maduro has offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to attempt to stave off mounting pressure from america.
“He’s offered every little thing,” Trump said on the time. “ why? Because he doesn’t need to f—- around with america.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the U.S. planned to enact what Trump called a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.”
However the U.S. Navy has 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier and several other amphibious assault ships, within the region.
Those ships carry a large complement of aircraft, including helicopters and V-22 Ospreys. Moreover, the Navy has been operating a handful of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft within the region.
All told, those assets provide the military a big ability to watch marine traffic coming in and in a foreign country.
Trump in his post said that the “Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” nevertheless it wasn’t clear what he was referring to.
The foreign terrorist organization designation has been historically reserved for non-state actors that don’t have sovereign immunities conferred by either treaties or United Nations membership.
In November, the Trump administration announced it was designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. The term Cartel de los Soles originally referred to Venezuelan military officers involved in drug-running, nevertheless it is just not a cartel per se.
Governments that U.S. administrations seek to sanction for financing, otherwise fomenting or tolerating extremist violence are frequently designated “state sponsors of terrorism.”
Venezuela is just not on that list.
In rare cases, the U.S. has designated a component of a foreign government as an “FTO.” The Trump administration in its first term did so with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the Iranian government, which had already been designated a state sponsor of terrorism.