{"id":360466,"date":"2025-12-20T19:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360466\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T19:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T19:08:09","slug":"us-seizes-another-vessel-off-venezuela-as-trump-administration-ramps-up-pressure-on-caracas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360466\/","title":{"rendered":"US seizes another vessel off Venezuela as Trump administration ramps up pressure on Caracas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Personnel from the United States boarded and seized a vessel off the coast of Venezuela, according to an official familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration ramps up pressure<\/a> on Caracas.\n <\/p>\n

\n The operation was led by the US Coast Guard, with assistance from the US military. It occurred in international waters, the official said.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was the second known instance of the US interdicting a vessel near Venezuela in the last two weeks. The US seized a large oil tanker<\/a> called the Skipper, which had been under sanctions for its ties to Iran, on December 10.\n <\/p>\n

\n President Donald Trump said afterward the US would continue to go after vessels transporting Venezuelan oil. And he announced this week a \u201cblockade\u201d of sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of the country.\n <\/p>\n

\n It wasn\u2019t immediately clear whether the vessel seized Saturday was under sanctions.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Coast Guard referred questions on the operation to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Combined with Trump\u2019s threats of land strikes<\/a> on Venezuelan soil, the seizures of vessels have ratcheted up pressure on Caracas by going after its economic lifeline, which had already come under strain after new sanctions on the oil sector earlier this year.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US is now months into its pressure campaign on Venezuela that has included moving thousands of troops and a carrier strike group into the Caribbean, strikes on suspected drug boats and repeated threats against President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US military has killed 104 people in strikes<\/a> that have destroyed 29 alleged drug boats, attacks that the Trump administration has sold as an effort to crack down on illegal flows of drugs and migrants from Venezuela. But its actions have also pointed to a sweeping pressure campaign on Maduro \u2014 whose ouster White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has suggested<\/a> is the administration\u2019s real goal.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s announcement this week of a \u201cblockade\u201d also underscored the president\u2019s focus on the country\u2019s oil, which he has said the US should have access to if Maduro is ousted. State-owned Petr\u00f3leos de Venezuela controls the country\u2019s petroleum industry. Houston-based Chevron is the only US firm drilling in Venezuela and pays a percentage of its output to PDVSA under a sanctions carve-out.\n <\/p>\n

\n Venezuela\u2019s oil reserves are the world\u2019s largest but operate well below capacity due to international sanctions. Much of the country\u2019s oil is sold to China.\n <\/p>\n

\n Venezuela slammed the blockade earlier this week, calling it \u201ca reckless and serious threat.\u201d It said it would continue to defend its sovereignty and national interests.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Personnel from the United States boarded and seized a vessel off the coast of Venezuela, according to an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-360466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}