Trump escalates Maduro confrontation with blockade on Venezuelan oil tankers
📅 Dec 17, 2025PBS NewsHour9 MIN30 SEGMENTS · 9 SPEAKERS
President Trump continued his rhetorical campaign against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, as a large American Naval ...NICK SCHIFRIN: To that, Maduro accuses the U.S. of resource colonialism. NICOLAS MADURO, Venezuelan President (through ...
President Trump today continued his rhetorical campaign against Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro, as a large American naval force sits in the waters off the coast. Mr. Trump sent a social media broadside last night against Maduro, which he reiterated today. The U.S., he says, will actively blockade and seize vessels it had already sanctioned, a move some critics have called an act of war.
In the Caribbean Sea, U.S. troops at the ready for a new mission, with more targets. American sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers. Last night on Truth Social, President Trump promised a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela.
Already last week, the Coast Guard and military boarded and seized a tanker. There are more than 30 such tankers off the Venezuelan coast, a ghost fleet of ships that Venezuela has used to evade oil sanctions. That pressures Venezuela's chief source of revenue. There are estimates that 90% of the economy is based on oil exports. And U.S. officials believe that challenging that weakens Maduro's grip on power, and could force him to step down.
We reiterate Mexico's position according to our constitution of non-intervention, no foreign interference, self-determination of peoples, and peaceful resolution of controversies.
But President Trump is making clear another U.S. priority. The U.S.'s historic interest in Venezuelan oil and gas. The country has the world's largest oil reserves, which the U.S. helped develop exactly one century ago. But former leader Hugo Chávez kicked out some U.S. and other foreign energy companies before his death in 2013. Today, only Chevron remains. And Trump yesterday wrote that the U.S. will not allow a hostile regime to take our oil, land, or any other assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, immediately.
You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil. From not that long ago. And we want it back, but they took it. They illegally took it.
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