The United States Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, assured the Security Council on Tuesday that his country will impose sanctions “to the maximum” on Venezuela after the US government’s blockade of sanctioned oil tankers and interception of several vessels in the Caribbean Sea. “The United States will apply maximum sanctions to deprive Maduro of the resources he uses to finance the Sun Cartel, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States,” Waltz said during an emergency Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.
Waltz reiterated that his country’s president, Donald Trump, has been “very clear” in his intention to use “the full power and strength of the United States” to confront and eradicate these drug cartels, which have operated with impunity for too long. » It was Venezuela that expressly requested this emergency debate in the Council, a request motivated by the blockade imposed by Trump against sanctioned oil tankers leaving and entering the South American country.
According to Waltz, these tankers operate as “the main economic lifeline of Maduro and his illegitimate regime“, and they also finance the Cartel of the Suns. “Maduro is responsible for the use of these resources and their profits for (drug) trafficking to the United States and Europe,” he stressed.
Tensions between the two countries increased in September, when the United States began attacking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, attacks that have already occurred. They cost the lives of more than 100 people. The White House assures that its objective with this offensive is to stop the entry of drugs into its country and that the terrorist designation of the Cartel des Soleils authorizes the government to legitimately defend itself against its threat. Added to this, on Saturday the US government intercepted in the waters of the Caribbean Sea another Panamanian-flagged tanker, called Centuries, which was transporting Venezuelan crude oil to refineries in China.
It is the second vessel intercepted in the Caribbean by the Trump administration, which last week seized the ship Skipper and confiscated the crude oil it was carrying. In addition, on Sunday the US government launched an “active pursuit” to intercept a third tanker, the Bella 1, as confirmed to Efe by a US official.
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