As part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to impose sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, the US Treasury Department has recently issued a new round of sanctions.
Four businesses and their associated oil tankers, who are alleged to be involved in Venezuelan oil transportation, are the targets of the sanctions announced on Wednesday.
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Trump has disputed Nicolas Maduro’s claim that the Venezuelan leader is in charge of a ‘narco-terrorist’ government that seeks to destabilize the US, which is repeated in recent sanctions announcements.
The Treasury stated on Wednesday that “Maduro’s regime increasingly relies on a shadow fleet of international vessels to facilitate sanctionable activity, including sanctions evasion, and to generate revenue for its destabilizing operations.”
Venezuela’s main export is oil, but the Trump administration has attempted to obliterate its domestic markets.
The Nord Star, the Rosalind, the Valiant, and the Della are accused of helping Venezuela’s oil sector evade existing sanctions by providing financial resources to “Maduro’s illegitimate narco-terrorist regime” with the release of the allegations in the notice on Wednesday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that “President Trump has made it clear that we will not allow the illegitimate Maduro regime to profit from oil exports while supplying the country with deadly drugs.”
The Treasury Department will continue to put pressure on Maduro’s regime under President Trump’s orders.
claims involving Venezuelan oil
A separate Venezuelan company that Washington claims assembled drones were created by Iran is now being subject to sanctions.
The Trump administration has cited a number of factors in recent months, including Maduro’s contested 2024 election and immigration.
Trump, for instance, has used the pressure campaign to stop the flow of illegal drugs, despite Venezuela exporting fentanyl essentially not the administration’s main drug.
Washington has also been accused of attempting to overthrow Maduro’s administration and take control of the nation’s vast oil reserves.
Trump’s statements that appear to have held control of Venezuela’s oil have fueled those suspicions.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s top adviser, claimed that the US “created the oil industry in Venezuela” the day after Trump declared a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving the country.
He suggested that Venezuela’s petroleum industry was robbed of it when it began to become a nationalist state in 1976.
After the election of socialist President Hugo Chavez in 1998, which relinquished state control over Venezuela’s oil industry, leading to the seizing of foreign assets in 2007, the process accelerated.
According to Miller, that “tyrannical expropriation” scheme was “the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
Chevron, a significant US oil company, still has operations there.
Trump has echoed Miller’s claims, saying that the US “will not permit a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets.”
He added that immediately all of those possessions “must be returned to the United States.”
Caribbean military expansion
The Trump administration has launched a number of military operations against tankers in recent months as it has focused more on Venezuela’s oil sector.
The Skipper, the administration’s first tanker, was seized on December 10; a second one was seized ten days later.
As it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, a third tanker reportedly has been on the lookout for US military personnel.
The US began dumping military assets in the Caribbean region along Venezuela’s coast, along with other military assets, several months prior to the attacks on the oil tankers.
In what rights groups refer to as extrajudicial killings, the US military has launched numerous bombing campaigns against alleged drug-smuggling boats in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific since September 2.
The administration has not provided any legal justification for the attacks despite the death of more than 100 people.
Trump claimed that the US had hit a “dock area” in Venezuela that was being used to load the alleged drug boats, and that he had told reporters on Monday.
Trump has long threatened to start attacking targets on land, but the dock bombing is regarded as the first of its kind on Venezuelan soil.
Source: Aljazeera
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