US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela coast
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
Using US forces to take control of a merchant ship is incredibly unusual and marks the Trump administration’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the US.
The US has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The campaign is facing growing scrutiny from Congress.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding that “it was seized for a very good reason.”
When asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”
The seizure was led by the US Coast Guard and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Coast Guard members were taken to the oil tanker by helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the official said. The Ford is in the Caribbean Sea after arriving last month in a major show of force, joining a fleet of other warships.
Shadow tankers
Video posted to social media by Attorney General Pam Bondi shows people fast-roping from one of the helicopters involved in the operation as it hovers just feet from the deck.
Bondi wrote that “for multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.”
The US official identified the seized tanker as the Skipper.
The ship departed Venezuela around Dec. 2 with about 2 million barrels of heavy crude, roughly half of it belonging to a Cuban state-run oil importer, according to documents from the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., commonly known as PDVSA, that were provided on the condition of anonymity because the person did not have permission to share them.
The Skipper was previously known as the M/T Adisa, according to ship tracking data. The Adisa was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over accusations of belonging to a sophisticated network of shadow tankers that smuggled crude oil on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
The network was reportedly run by a Switzerland-based Ukrainian oil trader, the U.S. Treasury Departmeny said at the time.
Largest oil reserves
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day.
PDVSA is the backbone of the country’s economy. Its reliance on intermediaries increased in 2020, when the first Trump administration expanded its maximum-pressure campaign on Venezuela with sanctions that threaten to lock out of the US economy any individual or company that does business with Maduro’s government. Longtime allies Russia and Iran, both also sanctioned, have helped Venezuela skirt restrictions.
The transactions usually involve a complex network of shadowy intermediaries. Many are shell companies, registered in jurisdictions known for secrecy. The buyers deploy so-called ghost tankers that hide their location and hand off their valuable cargoes in the middle of the ocean before they reach their final destination.
Maduro did not address the seizure during a speech before a ruling-party organized demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. But he told supporters that the country is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”
Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the US military operations is to force him from office.
Cover story
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the US seizing the oil tanker cast doubt on the administration’s stated reasons for the military buildup and boat strikes.
“This shows that their whole cover story – that this is about interdicting drugs – is a big lie,” the senator said. “This is just one more piece of evidence that this is really about regime change – by force.”
The seizure comes a day after the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest that warplanes had come to the South American country’s airspace. Trump has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered more details.
