Trump orders blockade on oil tankers in and out of Venezuela as U.S. pressure escalates

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a "TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela," escalating a U.S.-led effort to pressure Nicolás Maduro to cede power. In a statement on Truth Social, Trump argued that Venezuela is "completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled" and said the blockade would grow until the regime returns stolen U.S. assets, oil and land.

Trump's announcement followed last week's seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela's coast, an action the Maduro government denounced as 'international piracy.' The United States argued the tanker carried sanctioned Venezuelan oil and suspected it was bound for Cuba, though some industry experts suggested the ship's cargo might head to China given its size. Venezuela said it would escort ships exiting its main oil port, deploying its navy to monitor tanker traffic through the Caribbean sea lanes.

House Republicans on Wednesday cast votes against two resolutions that aimed to restrict the administration's actions against Venezuela, underscoring a split in Congress over how far to go in countering Maduro. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who co-sponsored one war powers resolution with a bipartisan group, said the move would send Americans into another regime-change conflict without authorization. "A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war," Castro wrote on X.

Pressure campaign rhetoric has intensified. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, in a provocative Vanity Fair interview published this week, said: "He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle." The administration has long described Maduro as the head of the "Cartel of the Suns" and has placed a $50 million bounty on the Venezuelan leader. The U.S. has also repositioned warships to the Caribbean—the most substantial naval deployment to the region since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Officials say the actions are justified by concerns about drugs trafficking and national security, but critics say the moves amount to extrajudicial killings and risk broadening conflict. Since September, the U.S. military has killed at least 90 people in strikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean that it identified as drug-carrying vessels. Maduro's government and victims' families say those boats were often fishing vessels and not narco-terrorists as the administration has described.

Trump presented the blockade as a tool to "keep the oil" seized from the tanker and to cripple Maduro's finances tied to oil. The administration added sanctions on six more ships accused of Venezuelan oil trafficking, targeting Maduro's relatives and businesses linked to his regime.

Analysts warn the move could devastate Venezuela's oil-reliant economy, potentially triggering social and economic upheaval in a country with vast reserves. "Because Venezuela is so dependent on oil, they could not resist that very long," retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mark Cancian, told the BBC last week.

David Goldwyn, president of international energy advisory consultancy Goldwyn Global Strategies, told the Washington Post there was "no basis for arguing that Venezuela's oil was stolen from the United States"—a reminder that energy nationalism is part of the dispute even as the White House frames the move as a broader national-security action.

Looking ahead, experts say the escalation could threaten to widen regional instability and disrupt global oil markets. The administration has argued that Maduro's regime funds drug and human-trafficking networks through oil revenues, while critics contend the actions violate constitutional limits on presidential authority and risk drawing the United States into a prolonged confrontation with Venezuela. Lawmakers in both parties have urged cautions and called for clearer authorization, highlighting that a blockade or broader military action without congressional approval could set a dangerous precedent for future crisis management in the region.