Trump says U.S. seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast

President Trump said Wednesday that U.S. forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a move that will likely inflame an already tense standoff between Washington and Caracas.

U.S. officials said the seizure was a “judicial enforcement action” carried out by the Coast Guard with support from the Navy.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” Mr. Trump said at a White House roundtable to talk about the economy. “Large tanker. Very large. Largest one ever seized, actually.”

“It was seized for a very good reason,” Mr. Trump said.

As for what will happen to the oil, Mr. Trump said, “We’ll keep it, I guess.”

The president declined to disclose who owned the tanker, under which flag it flew, or where it was headed. He did hint that more developments are forthcoming, saying, “other things are happening.”

The Navy and the Coast Guard referred requests for comments to the White House, which did not respond.

The U.S.S. Gerald Ford, an aircraft carrier Mr. Trump dispatched to the region last month, was said to be involved in the seizure, according to the Associated Press.

Seizing the oil tanker signals Mr. Trump is turning up the pressure for regime change against Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicholas Maduro. The Trump administration repeatedly accused Mr. Maduro of running a massive drug trafficking operation, a claim that he denies.

Crude oil futures jumped on the news of a seizure, with prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange rising from roughly $58 per barrel at noon to $59 per barrel by late afternoon trading.

The seizure will make it much harder for Venezuela to export its oil to other countries, as other shippers would be unlikely to load its oil onto their vessels, fearing additional seizures.

Venezuela exported more than 900,000 barrels per day of oil last month, its third-highest monthly average so far this year. State-run oil company PDVSA has been producing oil at a massive clip as Venezuela has been offering deep discounts to its main buyer, China, fearing competition over discounted oil from sanctioned Russia and Iran.

The country has the world’s largest oil reserves but it’s been cripped by U.S. sanctions that have left China and Cuba (which is also subject to U.S. sanctions) as its most lucrative markets.

Venezuela produces about 1 million barrels of oil per day. Locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.

Caracas has sought to evade those sanctions by using a complex web of shell companies registered in jurisdictions known for secrecy. The buyers deploy “ghost tankers” that hide their locations and take the oil in the middle of the ocean before they reach their final destination.

In 2020, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. seized 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel from four vessels that were headed to Venezuela. The Justice Department said the action disrupted a multimillion-dollar shipment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the State Department designated a foreign terrorist organization. It was the largest-ever seizure of fuel from Iran.

The oil tanker seizure was announced hours after Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado missed the Norway ceremony to collect her Nobel  Peace Prize. Ms. Machado has been in hiding in Venezuela since January and barred by the government from leaving the country. She has dedicated the prize to Mr. Trump “for his decisive support of our cause.”

Mr. Trump has turned up the heat on Mr. Maduro in recent months. Since September, the U.S. has carried out more than 20 strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the waters near Venezuela and Colombia, killing more than 80 suspects.

The arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford increased the number of U.S. military forces in the region to a level that has not been seen for decades. In addition, Mr. Trump has dispatched 11 war ships, scores of airplanes and thousands of troops to the region.

On Monday, U.S. fighter jets buzzed the Venezuelan coastline, the closest the military has come to breaching the nation’s territory.

The president said he’s  considering military action against Venezuela, including strikes on land, as part of his administration’s campaign against drug trafficking. During a call last month with Mr. Maduro, Mr. Trump reportedly told him to resign and leave or else.

Mr. Trump reportedly rejected Mr. Maduro’s demands that he be allowed to maintain control of the Venezuelan military if he allows free elections and is given amnesty for his crimes. The White House has accused Mr. Maduro of drug trafficking, a claim the Venezuelan leader has denied.

— This article is based in part on wire-service reports.