Washington — The U.S. has seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Trump said Wednesday, escalating tensions between the two countries. The president said he assumes the U.S. will keep the oil.
Bloomberg first reported the oil tanker seizure. The president made the comment during a roundtable meeting at the White House, saying the tanker was “seized for a very good reason.”
“As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large,” he said. “Largest one ever seized, actually. And other things are happening, so you’ll be seeing that later and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”
When asked by a reporter what will happen to the oil on the ship, Mr. Trump responded, “Well we keep it, I guess,” adding, “I assume we’re going to keep the oil.”
The president declined to say who owns the oil tanker, and didn’t provide further details.
Attorney General Pam Bondi shared video of the seizure on social media, writing that the tanker was “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran” and had been seized by the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Coast Guard, “with support from the Department of War.”
“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi wrote.
Mr. Trump has been threatening to expand the United States’ monthslong campaign of strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans onto land in Venezuela. The U.S. has been steadily building up its military forces in the area, and deployed two fighter jets to fly over the Gulf of Venezuela just this week.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” Mr. Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting last week, when asked about the administration’s strikes at sea. “You know, the land is much easier … And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live. And we’re going to start that very soon, too.”
