{"id":194466,"date":"2025-12-22T12:47:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T12:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-coast-guard-pursuing-another-oil-tanker-off-coast-of-venezuela-trump-administration-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T12:47:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T12:47:24","slug":"us-coast-guard-pursuing-another-oil-tanker-off-coast-of-venezuela-trump-administration-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-coast-guard-pursuing-another-oil-tanker-off-coast-of-venezuela-trump-administration-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US Coast Guard pursuing another oil tanker off coast of Venezuela | Trump administration – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump\u2019s \u2018blockade\u2019 on sanctioned tankers in and out of Venezuela
US Coast Guard officials said on Sunday they were tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela<\/a>, multiple unnamed US officials have told US media, marking the second such action over the weekend \u2013 and the third within the past week.
What officials described as an \u201cactive pursuit\u201d in the Caribbean Sea took place a day after the coast guard seized another vessel<\/a> off the coast of Venezuela, as Washington ramps up its pressure campaign targeting the South American nation\u2019s vital oil sector.
Unnamed officials told the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse that Sunday\u2019s pursuit involved \u201ca sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela\u2019s illegal sanctions evasion\u201d.
The ship was flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order, an unnamed US official alleged.
News outlets identified the ship involved as the Bella 1, an oil tanker under US sanctions since 2024 because of alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah.
US forces approached the vessel late on Saturday, but the ship did not submit to being boarded and continued sailing, the New York Times reported<\/a>, citing unnamed officials, who described the situation as still active.
According to the specialized site TankerTrackers, the ship was en route to Venezuela but not carrying cargo.
Donald Trump<\/a> had recently declared<\/a> a \u201cblockade\u201d targeting all sanctioned oil tankers traveling into or out of Venezuela.
The US president\u2019s campaign to increase<\/a> pressure<\/a> on<\/a> authoritarian Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> has involved a strengthened American military presence in the region, along with more than two dozen military strikes against vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American country. Those attacks have resulted in at least 100 deaths.
Kevin Hassett, the White House national economic council director, said on Sunday on CBS News\u2019s Face the Nation<\/a> that the first two tankers taken into custody had been operating illegally and supplying oil to countries under sanctions.
\u201cAnd so I don\u2019t think that people need to be worried here in the US that the prices are going to go up because of these seizures of these ships,\u201d Hassett said. \u201cThere\u2019s just a couple of them \u2013 and they were black market ships.\u201d
But as the seizures increase geopolitical tensions, they are likely to drive oil prices higher when Asian markets reopen on Monday, an oil trader told Reuters<\/a>. The trader added that expectations surrounding a potential end to the war in Ukraine could help limit further price increases.
US forces on Saturday apprehended<\/a> a second merchant vessel carrying oil off the coast of Venezuela in international waters in the midst of an American blockade against the country\u2019s oil, according to the Trump administration<\/a>\u2019s homeland security department.
That stoppage followed the seizure<\/a> by US forces of another oil tanker off Venezuela\u2019s coast on 10 December. Both vessels were headed to Asia.
When asked if he would support a US-backed regime change in Venezuela, James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, said on Sunday on CNN\u2019s State of the Union: \u201cWell, yes, I do.\u201d Lankford said Maduro \u201cis not the recognized leader of Venezuela\u201d as far as the senator is concerned, which appeared in part to be an allusion to Maduro\u2019s evident defeat in the 2024 presidential election to former diplomat Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez.
The developments come as Trump and his advisers have refused to rule out<\/a> the potential for open conflict with Venezuela as Maduro has urged his navy to escort oil tankers, defying the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.
After the first oil tanker was seized, the Venezuelan government said in a statement that the US had committed \u201cblatant theft\u201d and described the action as \u201can act of international piracy\u201d.
In an interview broadcast on Friday morning, Trump told<\/a> NBC News that going to war with Maduro\u2019s regime remains on the table. \u201cI don\u2019t rule it out, no,\u201d he told the network in a phone interview.
Reuters contributed reporting<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Official indicates vessel is subject to sanctions after Trump\u2019s \u2018blockade\u2019 on sanctioned tankers in and out of VenezuelaUS Coast Guard officials said on Sunday they were tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, multiple unnamed US officials have told US media, marking the second such action over the weekend \u2013 and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":194467,"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":{"0":"post-194466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194466","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=194466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}