White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was questioned about the U.S. seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. (Planter Labs/PBC/Handout via Reuters)
GRAHAM ISSUES 'FATAL' WARNING IF MADURO STAYS IN POWER AS US BUILDUP RAISES STAKES
"Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us," he wrote on Truth Social. "I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela."
Trump’s reference to "stolen" U.S. assets stems from a long-running dispute over Venezuela’s seizure of American-owned oil projects more than a decade ago. Beginning in 2007, the Chávez government forced U.S. firms like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to surrender multibillion-dollar investments in some of the country’s largest oil fields, triggering arbitration cases that remain unresolved.
Those expropriations targeted corporate property, not U.S. government land, but Trump has cast the episode as a broader theft from the American people as he presses for tougher measures against the Maduro regime.
With most Western buyers off the table, China has become Venezuela’s dominant customer for crude, often taking the vast majority of the country’s exportable barrels. (Jose Bula Urrutia/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
On Dec. 10, the U.S. seized a major oil tanker known as the Skipper, and plans to seek a warrant to seize the oil, worth tens of millions.
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Analysts say the regime has few practical ways to hit back without doing even more damage to itself.
Maduro could target U.S. oil interests in Venezuela — Chevron still has a license to operate there — but doing so would almost certainly inflict more pain on his own cash-starved regime than on the United States.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/maduro-erupts-trump-vows-massive-blockade-around-venezuela-decries-warmongering-threats