United States President Donald Trump has announced a naval blockade of "sanctioned oil vessels" leaving and heading to Venezuela, sharply escalating his pressure campaign against the South American country.
The US has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean — with the stated goal of combatting drug trafficking but taking particular aim at Venezuela.
Venezuela views the operation as a pressure campaign to remove leftist leader Nicolás Maduro, whom the US and many nations view as an "illegitimate" president.
After weeks of military jet flybys off the Venezuelan coast and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that have killed nearly 90 people, the Trump administration recently heightened its campaign by seizing an oil tanker leaving Venezuela's coast.
It subsequently announced sanctions on several other vessels.
"Today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday AEDT.
Trump also said the large US naval armada amassed in the Caribbean — which includes the world's largest aircraft carrier — "will only get bigger" until Venezuela returns "to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us".
"The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping," Trump said.
Though the US already has sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector, seizing its exports could potentially cripple its already struggling economy.
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