The US seized a tanker linked to Venezuela in the Caribbean ahead of the Trump-Machado meeting
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The United States has seized another tanker linked to Venezuela, US officials told Reuters on Thursday, ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
The seizure marks the sixth vessel targeted in recent weeks that is carrying Venezuelan oil or has done so in the past. The officials, who did not want to be identified, said the seizure took place in the Caribbean.
The US military’s Southern Command confirmed the pre-dawn operation, saying US forces captured the Motor/Tanker Veronica “without incident.” It said the Veronica “is acting in defiance of President Trump’s decision to quarantine authorized vessels in the Caribbean.”
“The oil that will come out of Venezuela will be oil that is properly and legally mixed,” Southern Command said in a statement.
The Guyana-flagged Aframax tanker Veronica has been empty in Venezuelan waters since early January, according to shipping documents from state-owned company PDVSA and monitoring service TankerTrackers.com. The ship had not returned to Venezuela as other ships have done in recent days.
The kidnapping began as part of Trump’s campaign to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of office, which led to US troops rushing into the country to arrest him and his wife on Jan. 3.
The United States is tightening its grip on Venezuelan oil production after seizing two more tankers, one of which is flying the Russian flag. The US said the tankers were part of a ‘shadow fleet’ carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil.
Since then, Trump has said that the United States plans to control Venezuela’s oil resources forever as it wants to rebuild the oil industry in that country with a $100 billion American plan.
The US government has filed court papers to seize dozens of tankers linked to the Venezuelan oil trade, four sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as Washington tightens controls on oil exports to and from the South American country.
The ships seized so far have been under American sanctions or part of the “shadow ships” of unregulated ships that hide their origin to deliver oil to major authorized producers – Iran, Russia or Venezuela.
Most of the vessels linked to Venezuela seized so far were flying false flags or had their flag registrations canceled before they were intercepted, maritime authorities in Panama, the Cook Islands and Guyana told Reuters.
Last week, the US intercepted a Russian-flagged oil tanker that had been hidden by a Russian submarine after chasing it for more than two weeks across the Atlantic.
This move was condemned by Moscow.
The latest kidnapping came ahead of Thursday’s meeting between Trump and Machado, in their first face-to-face meeting since the United States ousted his longtime adversary Maduro.
In the past, Trump has called him a “hero of freedom” but rejected the idea of putting him in the position of leading Venezuela after ousting Maduro, saying he does not have enough support at home.
A classified CIA assessment presented to Trump concluded that Maduro loyalists, including Delcy Rodriguez, were in the best position to maintain stability.
