Trump orders blockade of 'sanctioned oil tankers' into Venezuela,
ramping up pressure on Maduro
[December 17, 2025]
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a
blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up
pressure on the country’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in a move
that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American
country's economy.
Trump's escalation comes after U.S. forces last week seized an oil
tanker off Venezuela’s 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.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled
in the History of South America,” Trump said in a post on his social
media platform. “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.”
Pentagon officials referred all questions about the post to the White
House.
Venezuela’s government released a statement Tuesday accusing Trump of
“violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free
navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South
American country.
“On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral
wealth are his property,” the statement said of Trump’s post.
“Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its
riches. The President of the United States intends to impose, in an
utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with
the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”
Maduro’s government, according to the statement, plans to denounce the
situation before the United Nations.
The U.S. buildup has been accompanied by a series of military strikes on
boats in 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.
Trump has for weeks said that the U.S. will move its campaign beyond the
water and start strikes on land.
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.
The Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs
headed to the U.S., but Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles appeared to
confirm in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign
is part of a push to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries
uncle.”
Tuesday night's announcement seemed to have a similar aim.
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and
produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenue
as a lifeblood 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 into global supply chains.
The state-owned oil company Petróleos 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.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal
presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15,
2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
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.
In October, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro has 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’s offered everything,” Trump said at the time. “You know why?
Because he doesn’t want to f—- around with the United States.”
It wasn't immediately clear how the U.S. planned to enact what Trump
called a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS
going into, and out of, Venezuela.”
But the U.S. Navy has 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier and
several amphibious assault ships, in the region.
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.
All told, those assets provide the military a significant ability to
monitor marine traffic coming in and out of the country.
Trump in his post said that the “Venezuelan Regime has been designated a
FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” but it wasn't clear what he was
referring to.
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.
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.
Governments that U.S. administrations seek to sanction for financing,
otherwise fomenting or tolerating extremist violence are usually
designated “state sponsors of terrorism.”
Venezuela is not on that list.
In rare cases, the U.S. has designated an element of a foreign
government as an “FTO.” 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.
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Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Matt Le in Washington
and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this
report.
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