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President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a blockade of all \u201csanctioned oil tankers\u201d into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country\u2019s authoritarian leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s escalation comes after U.S. forces last week\u00a0seized an oil tanker\u00a0off Venezuela\u2019s coast, an unusual move that followed a buildup of military forces in the region. In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to continue the military buildup until the country gave the U.S. oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the U.S. had a claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cVenezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,\u201d Trump said in a post on his social media platform. \u201cIt will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pentagon officials referred all questions about the post to the White House.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s government press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But before Trump\u2019s announcement Tuesday, Maduro praised Venezuela for having \u201cproven to be a strong country\u201d in the face of U.S. pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cVenezuela has 25 weeks denouncing, confronting and defeating a campaign of multidimensional aggression, ranging from psychological terrorism to the piracy of the corsairs who assaulted the oil tanker,\u201d Maduro said on state television Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe have taken the oath to defend our homeland, and that on this soil peace and shared happiness triumph.\u201d<\/p>\n
The buildup has been accompanied by a series of\u00a0military strikes on boats\u00a0in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The campaign, which has drawn bipartisan scrutiny among U.S. lawmakers, has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels.<\/p>\n
Trump has for weeks said that the U.S. will move its campaign beyond the water and start strikes on land.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as a success, saying they have prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and pushed back on concerns that they are stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the U.S., but Trump\u2019s\u00a0chief of staff Susie Wiles\u00a0appeared to confirm in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is part of a push to oust Maduro.<\/p>\n
Wiles said Trump \u201cwants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday night\u2019s announcement seemed to have a similar aim.<\/p>\n
Venezuela, which has the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenue as a lifeblood of its economy.<\/p>\n
Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro\u2019s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.<\/p>\n
The state-owned oil company Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela S.A., commonly known as PDVSA, has been locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions. It sells most of its exports at a steep discount in the black market in China.<\/p>\n
Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston, said about 850,000 barrels of the 1 million daily production is exported. Of that, he said, 80% goes to China, 15% to 17% goes to the U.S. through Chevron Corp., and the remainder goes to Cuba.<\/p>\n
In October, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro has offered a stake in Venezuela\u2019s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to try to stave off mounting pressure from the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s offered everything,\u201d Trump said at the time. \u201cYou know why? Because he doesn\u2019t want to f\u2014- around with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how the U.S. planned to enact what Trump called a \u201cTOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the U.S. Navy has 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier and several amphibious assault ships, in the region.<\/p>\n
Those ships carry a wide complement of aircraft, including helicopters and V-22 Ospreys. Additionally, the Navy has been operating a handful of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in the region.<\/p>\n
All told, those assets provide the military a significant ability to monitor marine traffic coming in and out of the country.<\/p>\n
Trump in his post said that the \u201cVenezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,\u201d but it wasn\u2019t clear what he was referring to.<\/p>\n
The foreign terrorist organization designation has been historically reserved for non-state actors that do not have sovereign immunities conferred by either treaties or United Nations membership.<\/p>\n
In November, the Trump administration announced it was designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. The term Cartel de los Soles originally referred to Venezuelan military officers involved in drug-running, but it is not a cartel per se.<\/p>\n
Governments that U.S. administrations seek to sanction for financing, otherwise fomenting or tolerating extremist violence are usually designated \u201cstate sponsors of terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Venezuela is\u00a0not on that list.<\/p>\n
In rare cases, the U.S. has designated an element of a foreign government as an \u201cFTO.\u201d The Trump administration in its first term did so with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the Iranian government, which had already been designated a state sponsor of terrorism.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Matt Le in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Trump #orders #blockade #sanctioned #oil #tankers #Venezuela<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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