Trump Orders Blockade off Venezuela Coast to Stop Sanctioned Oil Tankers

The U.S. president also described Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s regime as a foreign terrorist organization.

An oil tanker sails on Lake Maracaibo, in Cabimas, Venezuela, on Oct. 14, 2022. Issac Urrutia/Reuters

President Donald Trump said that he was ordering a blockade be imposed off the coast of Venezuela to prevent any sanctioned oil tankers from entering or leaving the country.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Dec. 16. “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.”