President Trump’s order for a partial blockade of oil tankers traveling to and from Venezuela, and his claims that Caracas has stolen “oil, land and other assets” from the United States, marks a major escalation in Washington’s relentless campaign against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Asked about Venezuela on Wednesday, President Trump said the United States would “take the land, the oil concessions, everything else we had.”
“We want it back,” he said, without elaborating further. It’s unclear whether President Trump plans to say more about Venezuela in his televised address to the nation late Wednesday night.
The blockade is aimed at paralyzing key parts of Venezuela’s flagging oil-dependent economy and comes as the Trump administration ramps up its military in the Caribbean, blowing up more than 20 ships suspected of carrying illegal drugs in both the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, and threatening military attacks on Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada in South American history,” President Trump said in a rambling post on his social media site Tuesday night. “It’s going to be even bigger and the impact for them is going to be like nothing they’ve ever seen before.”
Shortly after President Trump announced the lockdown Tuesday night, the Venezuelan government denounced the move and other efforts as an attempt to “deprive our people of their wealth.”
Leaders of other Latin American countries called for calm, and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called on U.N. member states to “exercise restraint and de-escalate tensions in order to maintain stability in the region” after a phone call with Maduro.
Also on Wednesday, President Trump faced a rare pushback from the Republican-controlled Congress, with some lawmakers pressuring the administration to release more information about the deadly attack on suspected drug ships.
The Senate gave final approval to the $900 billion defense package. The package would require, among other things, the administration to disclose to lawmakers the specific orders behind the boat attack and the unedited video of the deadly attack. If the administration does not comply, the bill would seize a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel expenses.
The bill’s passage came a day after Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about U.S. military operations. Reactions from lawmakers at the meeting were mixed, with Republicans primarily supporting the campaign, while Democrats expressed concern.
The White House has said the military operation in Venezuela is aimed at curbing drug trafficking, but data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration shows Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the U.S.-bound drug trade.
President Trump also declared the South American country designated as a “foreign terrorist organization.” If that happens, Venezuela would become the first country to be subject to the classification normally given to armed groups deemed hostile to the United States and its allies. The implications for Venezuela remain unclear.
The region’s reaction to President Trump’s threats highlights new ideological fault lines in Latin America, where right-wing governments have won elections in Chile, Argentina and Ecuador in recent years.
Left-wing leaders in Brazil and Mexico, the region’s two most populous countries, have called for restraint in Venezuela.
“No matter what you think about the Venezuelan government or President Maduro, Mexico’s position should always be ‘no intervention, no foreign interference,'” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to seek a peaceful solution and avoid bloodshed.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also urged Trump to withdraw from the confrontation. Lula recently told President Trump that “the power of words can be greater than the power of guns” and offered to facilitate talks with Maduro’s government.
However, Chile’s right-wing president-elect José Antonio Casto has said he supports regime change in Venezuela, arguing that it would reduce migration from Venezuela to other countries in the region.
“If someone is going to do that, I want to be clear that it solves a huge problem for us and all of Latin America, all of South America, and even European countries,” Casto said, referring to Venezuelan immigration.
President Trump said in a post Tuesday that he has ordered a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.” Although the measure could be devastating to Venezuela’s economy, the fact that the blockade only affects tankers already sanctioned by U.S. authorities gives Venezuela some breathing room, at least for now.
Experts estimate that between one-third and half of the tankers transporting oil to and from Venezuela belong to the so-called shadow fleet of sanctions tankers. These ships typically transport crude oil from Venezuela and Iran, which are subject to strict U.S. trade and economic embargoes.
But experts said even a partial blockade would be a huge blow to Venezuela’s fragile economy, already reeling from more than a decade of U.S. sanctions. And the U.S. government can continue to add to the list of sanctioned tankers.
“The U.S. could continue to sanction more tankers, which would eliminate most of Venezuela’s revenue,” said David A. Smild, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. “It will probably cause famine in the country.”
Analysts say the increased pressure probably means fewer companies will take the risk of transporting Venezuelan crude, pushing prices higher and putting more pressure on Caracas. Buyers such as China will also likely demand lower prices to buy Venezuelan oil.
Trump said Maduro must step down because he is a “narco-terrorist” and the head of what the White House calls a drug-trafficking organization, the Cartel de los Soles. President Trump has placed a $50 million bounty on President Maduro’s head. Experts say Cartel de los Soles is not a functioning cartel, but an abbreviation for Venezuelan military officers who have been involved in drug trafficking for decades, long before Maduro and his late predecessor and leader Hugo Chávez took office.
In his comments Tuesday, President Trump denounced the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry, which began in the 1970s when Caracas was a strong ally of Washington.
Trump’s assertion that Venezuela “stole” American assets was echoed by Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, who declared in X: “America’s sweat, ingenuity, and toil created Venezuela’s oil industry. Venezuela’s tyrannical expropriation was the greatest theft of American wealth and property in history.”
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants to Florida, is among those believed to be driving Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro. The secretary of state has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist governments in Havana and Caracas. Venezuelan oil has helped the economies of left-wing governments in both Cuba and Nicaragua.
Christopher Sabatini, senior Latin America fellow at the Chatham House think tank, said Mr. Rubio has been campaigning for years to remove Mr. Maduro.
“He has his own political project,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get rid of the dictators of Venezuela and Cuba.”
Mr. McDonnell and Mr. Linthicum reported from Mexico City, and Mr. Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mary Mogollon in Caracas contributed to this report.
