Venezuelan officials said the U.S. engaged in “blatant theft and an act of international piracy” after American troops seized a tanker near its coastline that the Trump administration said was transporting crude oil from Venezuela to Iran in violation of sanctions.
U.S. officials said the tanker has long been the target of sanctions and was currently operating under the name Skipper. A federal judge issued a seizure warrant for the vessel roughly two weeks ago because of the ship’s history of smuggling illicit Iranian oil.
Iran uses oil sales to fund its armed forces, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist entity, according to federal prosecutors.
The seizure of the oil tanker signals that President Trump is turning up the pressure for regime change against Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil denounced the seizure, accusing America of trying to plunder its oil under the guise of cracking down on drug trafficking.
“The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed,” Mr. Gil said. “It’s not migration. It’s not drug trafficking. It’s not democracy. It has always been our natural resources.”
SEE ALSO: U.S. seizes oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast; Trump says, ‘Other things are happening’
Iran’s embassy in Caracas also condemned the action as a “grave violation of international laws and norms.”
Skipper was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 when it sailed as the Panamanian-flagged Adisa. At the time of the sanctions, the vessel was owned by Triton Navigation in the Marshall Islands.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Triton in 2022 along with Viktor Sergiyovitch Artemov, a Swiss-based Ukrainian citizen. OFAC said it was sanctioning Mr. Artemov because he led a network of ships and shell companies used to export Iranian oil to fund the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.
The U.S. Coast Guard, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport oil from Venezuela and Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions on both nations, said Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Ms. Bondi wrote on X that the seizure of the tanker was “due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.” She shared a video of U.S. forces jumping out of helicopters on the vessel and searching it.
Mr. Trump announced the seizure on Wednesday at a White House roundtable to discuss the U.S. economy.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” Mr. Trump said at a White House roundtable to talk about the economy. “Large tanker. Very large. Largest one ever seized, actually.”
“It was seized for a very good reason,” Mr. Trump said.
As for what will happen to the oil, Mr. Trump said, “We’ll keep it, I guess.”
The seizure will make it significantly more difficult for Venezuela to export its oil to other countries. Other shippers, fearing additional seizures, will be unlikely to load Venezuelan oil onto their vessels.
Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels per day of oil last month, its third-highest monthly average so far this year. State-run oil company PDVSA has been producing oil at a rapid pace as Venezuela offers deep discounts to its leading buyer, China, in an effort to avoid competition from discounted oil from sanctioned Russia and Iran.
The South American nation has the world’s largest oil reserves, but has been crippled by U.S. sanctions that have left China and Cuba (which is also subject to U.S. sanctions) as its most lucrative markets.
Venezuela produces about 1 million barrels of oil per day. Locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.
Mr. Trump has turned up the heat on Mr. Maduro in recent months. Since September, the U.S. has carried out more than 20 strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the waters near Venezuela and Colombia, killing more than 80 people.
The arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford increased the number of U.S. military forces in the region to a level not seen in decades. In addition, Mr. Trump has dispatched 11 warships, scores of airplanes and thousands of troops to the region.
On Monday, U.S. fighter jets buzzed the Venezuelan coastline, the closest the military has come to breaching the nation’s territory.
