{"id":193965,"date":"2025-12-17T20:48:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T20:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-president-ratchets-up-pressure-on-maduro-with-oil-tanker-blockade-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T20:48:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T20:48:22","slug":"trump-news-at-a-glance-president-ratchets-up-pressure-on-maduro-with-oil-tanker-blockade-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-news-at-a-glance-president-ratchets-up-pressure-on-maduro-with-oil-tanker-blockade-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump news at a glance: president ratchets up pressure on Maduro with oil tanker blockade – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump said US armada \u2018will only get bigger\u2019 until Venezuela returns \u2018all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us\u2019 \u2013 key US politics stories from 16 December 2025
Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a naval blockade of \u201csanctioned oil vessels\u201d leaving and heading to Venezuela, sharply escalating his pressure campaign against Caracas.
The US has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean \u2013 with the stated goal of combatting drug trafficking, but Venezuela views the operation as a campaign to oust Nicolas Maduro.
Though the US already has sanctions on Venezuela\u2019s oil sector, seizing its exports could cripple its already struggling economy. Last Wednesday, the US seized an oil tanker that was carrying Venezuelan crude.
In a post on social media announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes.
\u201cVenezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,\u201d Trump said on Truth Social. \u201cIt will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before \u2026 today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.\u201d
Trump said the armada \u2013 which includes the world\u2019s largest aircraft carrier \u2013 \u201cwill only get bigger\u201d until Venezuela returns \u201cto the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us\u201d.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The Pentagon will not make public the full video of a September attack in the Caribbean that killed two individuals as they were clinging to the wreckage of a burning boat, Pete Hegseth<\/a> said on Tuesday.
The strike<\/a> has been the most controversial development in Trump\u2019s campaign against Venezuela, which has seen US forces blow up vessels alleged to be transporting narcotics from the South American country to the USand threaten further military action against Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
US congresswoman Ilhan Omar<\/a> has warned that Trump<\/a>\u2019s repeated personal attacks and dehumanising rhetoric are fuelling a climate of political violence that could have dangerous consequences.
Speaking days after the president called for her to be thrown out of the country, Omar said Trump\u2019s incendiary language reaches \u201cthe worst humans possible\u201d and encourages them to act.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Trump<\/a> has signed a proclamation further restricting and limiting the entry of foreign nationals to the US, the White House said.
The US has imposed full restrictions and entry limitations on nationals from five countries \u2013 Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria \u2013 in addition to the initial list of 12 countries, the White House said.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Trump<\/a> believes \u201cthere\u2019s nothing he can\u2019t do, nothing, zero\u201d as US president, the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said in a rare interview<\/a> that shines an unvarnished spotlight on his second administration.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Wiles described Trump \u2013 who is teetotal \u2013 as having \u201can alcoholic\u2019s personality\u201d, an insight she ascribed to her relationship with her late father, the broadcaster and NFL star Pat Summerall, who had alcoholism.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit<\/a> that Trump filed against it. In a complaint, Trump sought $5bn in damages each on two counts, alleging that the BBC<\/a> defamed him, and that it violated Florida\u2019s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Democrats are condemning two Republican members of Congress who said, in the wake of the mass shooting in Australia<\/a>, that the US should ban Muslims from the country and kick out those who already live here.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Trump\u2019s administration argued on Monday in a court filing that the president\u2019s White House ballroom construction project must continue for reasons of national security.
The filing came in response to a lawsuit filed three days earlier by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt<\/a> the ballroom project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.
Read the full story<\/sub><\/a>
Barack and Michelle Obama were due to meet Rob and Michele Reiner<\/a><\/strong> the same day that the couple were found dead, the former first lady has said.
A leading Muslim civil rights group in the US has sued Ron DeSantis<\/a><\/strong> over his order designating it and another organization as a \u201cforeign terrorist organization.\u201d
Catching up? Here\u2019s what happened on 15 December 2025<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump said US armada \u2018will only get bigger\u2019 until Venezuela returns \u2018all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us\u2019 \u2013 key US politics stories from 16 December 2025Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a naval blockade of \u201csanctioned oil vessels\u201d leaving and heading to Venezuela, sharply escalating his pressure campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}