US forces on Saturday intercepted a second merchant vessel carrying oil off the coast of Venezuela amid the brewing tensions between the two nations
US forces on Saturday intercepted a second merchant vessel carrying oil off the coast of
Venezuela amid the brewing tensions between the two nations. The
US Department of Homeland Security confirmed the news and stated that the vessel was apprehended in international waters in the midst of an American blockade against the country’s oil.
The Saturday stoppage came after the seizure by US forces of another
oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast on December 10. The DHS stated that both vessels were bound for Asia. Meanwhile, the British maritime risk management company Vanguard told Reuters that the boat was believed to be the Panama-flagged Centuries and was intercepted east of Barbados in the
Caribbean Sea.
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Interestingly, the vessel does not appear to be sanctioned by the United States. Hence, its interception would represent an escalation in American enforcement of its blockade. It is pertinent to note that the US has suggested that any vessel carrying
Venezuelan oil could be subject to the US blockade and has been working to expand its list of sanctioned ships.
‘Pre-dawn action’
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, US Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi Noem said that the US Coast Guard and the Department of Defence had stopped the tanker early Saturday morning in “pre-dawn action”.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco-terrorism in the region,” Noem said. “We will find you, and we will stop you,” she wrote in the post. The first oil tanker seized by America was on the sanctioned list and was what White House called a “sanctioned shadow vessel known for carrying black-market sanctioned oil”.
Hence, the development is significant because it is coming at a time when US President
Donald Trump and his administration are refusing to rule out the potential for an open conflict with Venezuela. Meanwhile, the president of the Latin American nation,
Nicolas Maduro, urged the country’s navy to escort oil tankers and attempt to defy the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.
After the first oil tanker was seized, the Venezuelan government said in a statement that the US had committed “blatant theft” and described the action as “an act of international piracy”. Meanwhile, in an interview on Friday, Trump told NBC News that going to war with Maduro’s regime remains on the table. “I don’t rule it out, n