Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro ordered his navy to escort ships carrying petroleum products out of port — a brazen challenge to President Trump’s newly declared “blockade” targeting the country’s lifeblood.
The Venezuelan navy on Tuesday and Wednesday escorted three tankers carrying Venezuelan urea, petroleum coke and other oil-based products to Asia, according to the New York Times, which cited three sources familiar with the ships’ movements.
None of the vessels that left with the Venezuelan navy were on the US sanctions list — at least for now. But Maduro’s move has increased the risk of a military confrontation, US defense analysts have warned.
Until now, the Venezuelan president has avoided responding with force, and his calling up of the navy to assist in bucking Trump’s blockade represents a new escalation from Caracas’ side as Trump aim to drain the dictator’s oil revenues with his blockade announcement on Tuesday.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in his announcement on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
“The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping,” he added.
Maduro’s naval orders came after four Panama-flagged ships headed for Venezuela turned around on Dec. 11 — just one day after the US military seized an oil tanker headed for the country last week, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
One of the four vessels, known as “Bella 1,” was already on the US sanctions list for transporting Iranian oil. The others were Seeker 8, Karina and Eurovictory, according to data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler.
The seized tanker is now located near Cuba, according to the latest maritime tracking, apparently headed for Florida’s coast after Trump said the US would take its oil.
Trump’s pressure campaign against the dictator began first by targeting what the US believes is Maduro’s other money-making endeavor: drug trafficking. In September, the US began blowing up Venezuelan narcoterrorists in boats transporting drugs from the country.
While the US has ratcheted up the pressure on Maduro by targeting Venezuela’s oil industry — the backbone of its economy — the Trump administration’s strikes on narcoterrorists boats also continue.
The US on Wednesday killed another four narcoterrorists in its 26th strike of the kind, bringing the death toll to at least 99 Venezuelan drug traffickers, US Southern Command announced in a post to X.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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