Trump’s New Plan to Play Battleship With Venezuela’s Oil Tankers

KEY POINTS

•The Trump administration authorized the first tanker seizure, targeting the 'Skipper' with its 2 million barrels offshore last week.
•As many as 18 sanctioned ships fill Venezuelan waters, while detention plans hover around legal warrants and possible land strikes.
•Treasury sanctioned six new vessels plus Maduro's nephews Friday, tightening restrictions amid cyberattack accusations and grounded flights.

In a move that sounds like the plot of a bizarre action movie, the Trump administration is leveling up its Venezuelan pressure game by prepping to confiscate up to 18 massive oil tankers — including the 'Skipper,' which hauls nearly 2 million barrels like an overambitious Costco haul. This international dunk on Maduro’s regime kicked off with last week’s first-ever tanker seizure in international waters, accompanied by ominous hints of land strikes coming “a lot easier.” While Venezuela’s 39 tankers sit docked with around 11 million barrels of crude, Trump’s team debates whether to issue warrants for ships in Venezuelan waters or just wait for them to make the first move. Meanwhile, Maduro’s been indicted as a narco-terrorist, his nephews got blacklisted, and more ships have joined the Treasury Department’s VIP blacklist. Against this backdrop, commercial flights are grounded, Maduro blames a cyberattack on the US (or maybe mole anti-Maduro geeks), and shadowy “dark fleet” vessels try dodging sanctions like it’s a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek. As the US contemplates blowing up drug boats and maybe even invading land-based drug labs, one Trump adviser crisply summarizes: 'Maduro’s losing drug money, losing oil money and losing gold money. He’s gonna break.'

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Seizing Venezuelan oil tankers like stolen cargo while threatening land strikes: Trump’s strategy looks less diplomacy, more Rent-A-Blockade meets GPS-guided tantrum.

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