Trump said he has ordered a blockade of oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude that are under international sanctions

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a blockade on “sanctioned oil vessels” traveling to and from Venezuela, sharply intensifying pressure on Caracas while issuing fresh demands over the country’s crude resources.

For months, the United States has been expanding a significant military presence in the Caribbean, officially aimed at countering drug trafficking in Latin America, but with a particular focus on Venezuela. Caracas views the buildup as an effort to remove President Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington and several other countries regard as illegitimate.

Following weeks of military jet patrols off Venezuela’s coast and deadly strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats that have reportedly killed more than 90 people, the Trump administration escalated its campaign last week by seizing an oil tanker departing the country. Sanctions were later imposed on several additional 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 Tuesday evening.

He said the large US naval force assembled in the Caribbean — including 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.”

Trump did not specify which oil or land he was referring to. Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, and under former president Hugo Chávez, foreign companies were later compelled to give majority control to the state oil firm PDVSA.

“The illegitimate Maduro regime is using oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping,” Trump wrote.

Maduro has repeatedly argued that the US military deployment near Venezuela is part of a plan to overthrow his government and seize the country’s vast oil reserves under the pretext of anti-narcotics operations.

Although the United States already imposes sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, intercepting its exports could severely damage the country’s already fragile economy, potentially creating serious political challenges for Maduro.

“If there are no oil exports, it will affect the foreign exchange market and the country’s imports… There could be an economic crisis,” Elias Ferrer of Orinoco Research told AFP recently. “Not just a recession, but shortages of food and medicine, because we wouldn’t be able to import.”

Venezuela has long evaded US sanctions by selling crude at discounted rates on the black market, primarily to China. According to OPEC, the country holds an estimated 303 billion barrels of oil reserves — the largest in the world.