The US Treasury Department has imposed new sanctions aimed at isolating Venezuela’s oil industry as part of President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the South American country.
The sanctions announced Wednesday target four companies and their associated oil tankers allegedly involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.
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President Trump has claimed that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is leading a so-called “narco-terrorist” government aimed at destabilizing the United States, an accusation repeated in the latest sanctions announcement.
“The Maduro regime has increased its reliance on a shadow fleet of vessels around the world to facilitate sanctioned activities, including sanctions evasion, and generate revenue for destabilizing operations,” the Treasury Department said Wednesday.
Oil is Venezuela’s main export, but the Trump administration is trying to cut the country off from international markets.
Wednesday’s notice accuses the four tankers Nord Star, Rosalind, Valiant and Dera of helping Venezuela’s oil sector evade existing sanctions, thereby providing “a source of financing to fuel President Maduro’s illicit narco-terrorism regime.”
“President Trump has made it clear: We will not allow the illegitimate Maduro regime to flood the United States with deadly drugs while profiting from oil exports,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
“The Treasury Department will continue to implement President Trump’s pressure campaign against the Maduro regime.”
Claims against Venezuelan oil
The sanctions come a day after the U.S. government imposed sanctions on another Venezuelan company it says assembled Iranian-designed drones.
In recent months, the Trump administration has cited several motivations for ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela, from immigration to Maduro’s contested 2024 election.
For example, President Trump frames the pressure campaign as a means to disrupt the illegal drug trade, even though Venezuela exports virtually no fentanyl, the regime’s main target.
Critics also accuse the United States of trying to overthrow Maduro’s government in order to seize control of the country’s vast oil reserves.
Trump officials have stoked these suspicions with statements that appear to claim ownership of Venezuelan oil.
On December 17, the day after President Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela, Trump’s top adviser Stephen Miller claimed that the United States “created Venezuela’s oil industry.”
He suggested that this oil may have been stolen from the United States when Venezuela nationalized its oil industry starting in 1976.
This process accelerated after the election of socialist President Hugo Chávez in 1998, who reasserted state control over Venezuela’s oil sector and ultimately led to the seizure of foreign assets in 2007.
Miller claimed that the “arrogant expropriation” scheme “was the greatest theft of American wealth and property in history.”
Still, Chevron, one of America’s major oil companies, continues to operate in the country.
President Trump echoed Miller’s assertion, writing online that the United States “will not allow a hostile regime to seize our oil, land, or other assets.”
He added that all these assets “must be immediately returned to the United States.”
Military buildup in the Caribbean
The Trump administration has increased its focus on Venezuela’s oil industry in recent months, taking a series of military actions against tankers.
On December 10, the regime seized its first tanker, Skipper, and ten days later made a second seizure.
The US military is reportedly tracking a third tanker as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean.
The attack on the oil tanker comes months after the United States began flooding the Caribbean region off Venezuela’s coast with planes, warships and other military assets.
Since Sept. 2, the U.S. military has carried out dozens of bombing operations against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in what rights groups call extrajudicial killings.
More than 100 people were killed, but the government offered little legal justification for the attack.
On Monday, President Trump told reporters that the United States had attacked a “pier area” in Venezuela that he claimed was used to load alleged drug ships.
The dock bombing is believed to be the first bombing of its kind on mainland Venezuela, although President Trump has long threatened to launch attacks on land targets.
The administration has not officially revealed which agency was behind the attack on the docks, but U.S. media widely reported that it was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
