This is unlikely to end well for all parties concerned, including the US.
It’s been a busy week for the Empire of Lies and Chaos, especially in its direct neighbourhood. The illegal seizure of an Iranian oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil on Wednesday was a reminder of what the US’ illegal war of aggression is really about: Venezuela’s oil deposits, which represent almost one-fifth of the world’s known reserves.
The Maduro government has reportedly offered first dibs on that oil. However, Venezuelan law holds that the majority partner in any drilling consortium must be Venezuela’s state-owned PVDSA, and that is not enough for Washington. It wants more; it wants it all.
There are, of course, other reasons, including Venezuela’s large deposits of gas, gold, rare earths and freshwater. Venezuela’s close ties with Russia, China and Iran, from where the tanker originally came, and Cuba, to where the tanker was heading, are also a key factor.
There are the Military Industrial Complex’s needs to keep in mind. With the Trump administration drawing down US commitments to project Ukraine, another war must be started in order to keep the Pentagon’s money laundromat working at full speed (h/t Ashburn).
One thing that is now beyond dispute, however, as we’ve been arguing since the Trump administration began amassing naval forces in the Caribbean over four months ago, is that this has nothing whatsoever to do with combating drug trafficking.
A Total Siege of Venezuela and Cuba?
The seizure of this tanker suggests, together with Trump’s recent declaration of a no-fly zone over Venezuela, that the US is now trying to topple Maduro by imposing a total siege on Venezuela. After cutting off the country from a large chunk of the world economy through escalating economic sanctions, Washington is now trying to cut it off from its closest allies and what remains of its revenue streams (which were actually improving of late).
The Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy”, and “blatant theft”.
This may be the first time that an oil tanker has been seized in Venezuelan waters but it is part of a broader trend — not just of seizures of tankers but also attacks on them, as Alex Christoforou pointed out on The Duran yesterday. According to Al Jazeera, the last time the US military seized a foreign tanker was in 2014, when US Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off Cyprus as Libyan rebels attempted to sell stolen crude oil.
If the US goal is to impose a total siege of Venezuela’s economy, it has more than enough naval resources in the Caribbean to do so, as Alexander Mercouris noted in the same episode of The Duran.
Legal Justifications
So, what are the legal grounds for the US military’s seizure of the tanker?
Does it even matter?
The US has just spent the past four months killing boatloads of unknown, unnamed people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. These extrajudicial murders on the high seas have provided further confirmation, if ever needed, that Washington has zero regard for international law, apart from when it suits its own interests.
According to Bloomberg, US officials have described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it had been docked in Venezuela. The vessel in question, the M/T SKIPPER, had reportedly been sanctioned by the US Treasury since 2022 for its ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah.
Here we have a smiling CNN “analyst” explaining how seizing other country’s oil on the high seas, and then keeping it, is not only perfectly “normal” but also legal, if the country in question has been the target of US sanctions:
Whatever the legality of this action, one thing is clear: it is an act of war.
As NC reader Johnny GL noted in yesterday’s comments, the US’ latest moves suggest that Trump is “trying to do regime change through intimidation, alone”, thereby avoiding the much greater risks posed by military action. But it is also trying to kill a number of other birds with this one particular stone, including its longest-standing enemy in the region, Cuba.
It is almost certainly no coincidence that the tanker in question was carrying oil to Cuba. Washington is clearly intent on strangling to death Cuba’s energy-starved economy. As we previously reported, Marco Rubio’s State Department has already targeted Cuba’s international medical missions, now its largest source of foreign currency reserves, with sanctions.
Will the US also try to stop oil shipments from Mexico? First initiated by former President Andres Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO) in 2023, the country’s state-owned oil company Pemex’s shipments to Cuba have become a key lifeline for the Caribbean island nation since 2023, as well as a source of friction between Mexico and the US.
The seizure of M/T SKIPPER has also provided Washington with a fresh opportunity to emphasise the close ties between Venezuela and Iran, two heavily sanctioned countries whose governments the US and Israel, respectively, are simultaneously seeking to topple.
How Russia and China respond to this latest act of war by Washington will be key. In a statement yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked for an explanation from the US, emphasising that Russia advocates “for a collective debate on how to combat drug trafficking and guarantee maritime security, avoiding unilateral actions.”
President Putin also had a telephone conversation with Maduro yesterday in which the Russian leader “expressed solidarity with the people of Venezuela and reaffirmed his support of the policies of the Maduro government aimed at protecting national interests and sovereignty amid growing external pressure.”
For its part, Beijing has announced that it firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that lack a basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council, as well as the abuse of sanctions.
Interestingly, on Wednesday China released its third policy paper on Chinese relations with Latin America and the Caribbean (a very long document that I hope to read in depth this weekend). The stated goal of the paper is “to draw experience, plan the future , elaborate China’s policy on LAC, and bring the relations and cooperation between the two sides in various fields to a new level.”
Next on the List?
On the same day as the tanker seizure (Wednesday) Trump also threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro, telling him that “he’s going to be next” as the US leader seeks the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“He’s been fairly hostile to the United States. I haven’t given a lot of thought. He’s gonna have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs,” Trump said in response to a question on whether he plans to speak with Petro.
“They have cocaine factories that they make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States. So he better wise up, or he’ll be next. He’ll be next soon. I hope he’s listening. He’s going to be next,” he added.
This is all a pantomime, of course. As readers know, Trump just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was convicted in the US of trafficking more than 400 tons of US-bound cocaine through Honduras. That’s right: one of the world’s worst drug traffickers was just freed by a man claiming to be on a mission against the drug cartels.
Also, Petro only has a few months left of his four-year presidential term to serve, so any attack against his government or Colombia as a whole would be beyond absurd. But that doesn’t put it beyond the capabilities of Trump 2.0.
A few days ago, Petro gave a speech on the need for unity among Latin American countries. He also called for the recreation of the Gran Colombia confederation that in the early 19th century comprised Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama (It’s well worth listening to the three-minute clip below, which features English subtitles):
“Let’s reestablish the great Confederation of a Gran Colombia. Among the existing nations that were part of Gran Colombia. Because only if we unite what was once Gran Colombia. Mexico will once again look toward the south. And Brazil will once again look to its South America.”
“And the 3 largest economies in all of Latin America and the Caribbean; will once again plant the flag of unity, so that we are not disrespected. It is in division that we are disrespected. It is when each of us speaks only for themselves, sometimes defending greedy interests within their countries. Sometimes hiding the skeleton in the closet. That is why they are insulting us and not just insulting us, but humiliating us, and not only humiliating us, but killing our people.”
The Colombian Congress has also responded firmly to Trump’s latest threats against Petro. Lawmakers demanded respect for national sovereignty and called for non-interference in the Colombian electoral process. They also noted that the statements violate the principles of the UN Charter on non-intervention and urged the maintenance of bilateral relations based on diplomacy and mutual respect.
Electoral Chaos in Honduras
Meanwhile, the small Central American nation of Honduras has been plunged into post-election chaos by allegations from the governing Libre Party of “monumental electoral fraud”. From Drop Site News:
Days removed from Sunday’s presidential vote, and still without a clear winner, Honduras’s post-election crisis became more contentious after a member of the country’s electoral authority denounced “monumental electoral fraud” on Thursday evening.
Marlon Ochoa, a representative for the Libre Party on the three-member National Electoral Council (CNE), alleged coordinated and deliberate electoral fraud carried out by the other council members, Cossette Alejandra López-Osorio of the National Party and Ana Paola Hall of the Liberal Party…
López-Osorio and Hall represent the country’s traditional political parties, both of which were relegated to opposition status when Xiomara Castro won the general election for Libre in 2021. Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party has likewise alleged that irregularities may be affecting the results.
In a letter, Ochoa alleged manipulation of the results-transmission system as well as obstruction from within the state’s electoral authority. Ochoa said the TREP suffered deliberate failures, including disabled biometric checks, altered digital tally sheets, unexplained vote transfers, and the 40-hour retention of more than 16,000 tally sheets, which created massive discrepancies he claims total nearly one million votes. With the entire vote-processing chain compromised, he concluded that “there is no certainty whatsoever about the results.”
Could US-backed groups have hacked the system, as the Maduro government claims to have happened during Venezuela’s elections in the summer of 2024?
Nick Corbishley 