After Tanker Raid At Sea, Trump Signals Land Operations Against Venezuela Networks

(MENAFN- The Rio Times) Key Points

• Trump's vow of“land operations” in Venezuela follows a dramatic U.S. seizure of a giant oil tanker off its coast.
  
• The Skipper tanker raid exposes a shadowy oil-and-drugs ecosystem that keeps Nicolás Maduro's cash-starved regime alive.
  
• What looks like an anti-cartel push is also a test of U.S. power, global shipping rules and regional stability.
  

Trump's message was blunt: after seizing a supertanker off Venezuela, the United States will“start acting on land very soon” against networks he links to drugs and crime. The remark marked a sharp escalation in a confrontation that has been building for months.

The immediate trigger was the boarding of the Skipper, a massive crude-oil carrier intercepted near Venezuelan waters. U.S. forces rappelled from helicopters, took control without a shot fired and began towing the ship toward a friendly port.

Washington says the tanker carried more than a million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan crude and had a record of switching off its tracking signal, changing flags and serving regimes and groups under U.S. sanctions.



For Venezuela's rulers, this is not law enforcement but theft. Caracas denounces“piracy” and claims the ship was engaged in legitimate trade, insisting that Washington's real goal is to strangle its economy and grab a share of the country's oil wealth.

It presents the showdown as a fight against foreign interference, even as the economy shrank, inflation exploded and millions of Venezuelans left the country.
America Ramps Up Caribbean Drug War
Behind the scenes, however, U.S. strategy goes beyond a single ship. For months, American aircraft and warships have hunted suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, sinking dozens of small vessels and killing scores of alleged traffickers.

The Pentagon has reinforced the region with thousands of personnel and a flotilla of warships, creating the largest U.S. presence there in decades.

For expats, investors and travelers, the stakes are clear. Escalation near an oil producer can lift fuel prices and unsettle shipping routes.

High-seas raids and possible land operations blur lines between policing and undeclared war. And the deeper Venezuela sinks into isolation and crisis, the more migration pressures spill across the Americas and into destination countries.

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