Yesterday, President Donald Trump gave a new twist to his pressure on Venezuela by announcing the seizure of a “large” oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. “We just seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, a very large tanker – in fact, the largest ever seized,” Trump told reporters. “And there are other things happening, you’ll see later,” he added.
The revelation came at the start of a roundtable with businessmen and senior officials.
The Republican president, who has waged a tough campaign against Nicolás Maduro’s government since returning to the White House, gave no details about the ship, its owner or its destination. “It was confiscated for good reasons,” he simply explained. Photos of the operation would be released, he added. “I assume we will stick with oil,” he later explained.
Trump said in a recent interview with the website Politico that Maduro’s days are “numbered.” Venezuela’s most important resource is crude oil, which is subject to an embargo. This forces the country to offer its production at significantly lower prices on the black market, which is particularly aimed at Asian countries.
Washington also accuses the Maduro government of being a “narco-terrorist” regime and has therefore launched a military campaign to destroy boats apparently carrying drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans.
This campaign, carried out by an unprecedented naval and air force, includes the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford. To date, the campaign has resulted in approximately twenty attacks and at least 87 deaths.
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