Trump’s escalation comes after US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, an unusual move that followed a build-up of forces in the region. In a social media post Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump claimed Venezuela was using oil to finance drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to continue the military buildup until the country gives the U.S. oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the U.S. had a claim.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” Trump said in a message on his social media platform. “It will only get worse, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until they return to the United States of America all the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us.”
Pentagon officials referred all questions about the post to the White House.
The Venezuelan government released a statement on Tuesday accusing Trump of “violating international law, free trade and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and serious threat” against the South American country.
“On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land and mineral resources are his property,” the statement about Trump’s post said.
“That is why he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its wealth. The President of the United States plans to impose a so-called naval blockade on Venezuela in a completely irrational manner with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”
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According to the statement, Maduro’s government plans to denounce the situation at the United Nations.
The U.S. buildup has been accompanied by a series of military attacks on boats in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
The campaign, which has attracted bipartisan attention among U.S. lawmakers, has killed at least 95 people in 25 known attacks on ships.
Trump has said for weeks that the US will move its campaign beyond the water and begin attacks on land.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as a success, saying they have prevented drugs from reaching US shores and pushing back on concerns that they are pushing the limits of legal warfare.
The Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs coming into the US, but Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles appeared to confirm in a Vanity Fair interview published on Tuesday that the campaign is part of an effort to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro calls uncle.”
Tuesday night’s announcement seemed to have a similar purpose.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels per day, has long relied on oil revenues as the lifeline of its economy.
Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude oil into global supply chains.
State oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, better known as PDVSA, has been excluded from global oil markets by US sanctions. The country sells most of its exports at a steep discount on the black market in China.
Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston, said about 850,000 barrels of the 1 million daily production are exported. Of that, he said, 80 percent goes to China, 15 to 17 percent goes through Chevron Corp. to the US, and the rest goes to Cuba.
In October, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro had offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to try to stave off mounting pressure from the United States.
“He offered everything,” Trump said at the time. “You know why? Because he doesn’t want to mess with the United States.”
It was not immediately clear how the US planned to accomplish what Trump called a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SNCTIONED OIL TANKERS GOING IN AND OUT OF Venezuela.”
But the US Navy has 11 ships in the region, including an aircraft carrier and several amphibious assault ships.
These ships carry a large number of aircraft, including helicopters and V-22 Ospreys. Additionally, the Navy has deployed a handful of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in the region.
Taken together, these assets provide the military with significant ability to monitor maritime traffic moving in and out of the country.
Trump said in his post that the “Venezuelan regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” but it was not clear what he was referring to.
The designation of foreign terrorist organization has historically been reserved for non-state actors who do not enjoy sovereign immunity granted by treaties or membership in the United Nations.
In November, the Trump administration announced it would designate 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 trafficking, but it is not a cartel per se.
Governments that are sanctioned by U.S. governments for funding, or that otherwise encourage or tolerate extremist violence, are commonly referred to as “state sponsors of terrorism.”
Venezuela is not on that list.
On rare occasions, the US has designated a part of a foreign government as an ‘FTO’. The Trump administration did this during its first term together with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, a branch of the Iranian government that had already been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
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