Trump Orders Blockade of Oil Tankers   12/17 06:05

   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 Nicols Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a 
tighter chokehold on the South American country's economy.

   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 Nicols 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 Petrleos 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.

   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.