Washington.– The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Wednesday that his country intercepted and seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, raising tensions between Washington and Caracas.
“We have just seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a large oil tanker, a very large one, the largest ever seized, actually,” the president declared at the start of a round table with businessmen at the White House.
The Bloomberg agency had first reported exclusively, citing familiar sources, that a tanker sanctioned by the United States had been seized by the North American country off the coast of Venezuela.
This seizure could make the export of Venezuelan oil much more difficult, as other carriers are now likely to be more reluctant to carry their shipments.
These events occur on the same day as the ceremony in Oslo for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who did not attend, although she assured that she will arrive in the Norwegian capital in the coming hours
The US Military Presence in the Caribbean
The Donald Trump administration has increased pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro, whom it accuses of leading an international drug trafficking network through the alleged criminal group Cartel de los Soles, something that Caracas vehemently denies.
Since September, the U.S. Armed Forces have destroyed more than twenty vessels allegedly loaded with drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific, extrajudicially killing more than 80 crew members.
Trump has promised that “soon” attacks will begin within Venezuelan territory, while Maduro has called on his citizens to unite against American threats and enlist in citizen militias.
PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, is working on drilling tasks with the American company Chevron, which has a license from the Treasury Department that exempts it from sanctions.
Venezuela Asks Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico to Join
Venezuela’s Executive Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, called this Wednesday for unity between her country and nations such as Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico amid tensions over the United States’ naval and air deployment in the Caribbean Sea.
«We call on the peoples of our Latin America and the Caribbean to unite as one. This national security strategy is against our entire region, it is not against Venezuela,» Rodríguez assured during a session of the Assembly of the peoples for sovereignty and peace, broadcast by the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
When questioning that the Donald Trump government seeks to re-establish the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 to consolidate the U.S. as the main power of the American continent, according to the new foreign policy recently released by the White House, Rodríguez made this call after mentioning that the Venezuelan precursors contemplated the union of several countries as “a single nation” and the creation of a “multinational army”.
«I say to our brothers in Colombia: we are ready in Venezuela for the union of our peoples (…). We are ready, President (Gustavo) Petro, to unite; we are ready, President (Luiz Inácio) Lula, to unite; President Claudia (Sheinbaum) to unite,» the official stated.
«Brothers, sisters of our Latin America and the Caribbean: either we unite or we succumb. We from Venezuela are not willing to negotiate, to surrender or to succumb,» he added.
