Venezuela condemns US imposing "total blockade" on oil tankers

(MENAFN) Venezuela strongly denounced the United States on Tuesday for imposing a “total blockade” on oil tankers, calling the measure a breach of international law.

In an official statement, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez accused US President Donald Trump of issuing “reckless and serious threats” that violate the principles of free trade and freedom of navigation. The announcement followed Trump’s Monday declaration that he had ordered a “total and complete blockade” on sanctioned vessels entering or leaving Venezuela, amid a growing US military presence off the country’s northern coast in the Caribbean Sea.

Caracas described the move as “grotesque,” alleging that Trump aims to seize Venezuela’s natural resources. The government statement claimed that Trump “assumes that Venezuela's oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property.” On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that Venezuela is “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America” and warned that pressure would continue until Caracas returned “all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us,” seemingly referencing past nationalization of US-owned assets.

This development represents the latest escalation in a months-long US pressure campaign on Venezuela. Over the past four months, US forces have maintained an expanding military presence in the Caribbean, carrying out strikes on vessels suspected of drug trafficking. Trump has also indicated that US military operations on Venezuelan soil, including potential land strikes, remain a possibility.

Tensions intensified further when a US seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on December 10 was denounced by Caracas as “international piracy.” Washington, however, maintains that these actions target “illicit oil shipping networks” that finance “foreign terrorist organizations.”

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