The US confirmed on Friday that it seized 1.116 million barrels of Iranian fuel that was bound for Venezuela. President Trump said the four oil tankers that are carrying the fuel are headed to Houston.
“We have four tankers. They are going to Houston, and they’re there … Iran is not supposed to be doing that. And so we did — we seized the tankers, and we’re moving them, and moved, to Houston,” President Trump said at a press conference on Friday.
It is not clear how exactly the shipment was seized. With US sanctions on Venezuela targeting the maritime industry, it is possible the shipowners were threatened with the loss of registration or insurance, which could have been enough for them to comply and sail to a US port.
The Department of Justice said in a statement on the matter that the US filed a complaint “seeking to forfeit all petroleum-product cargo aboard four foreign-flagged oil tankers.” The DOJ statement said with “the assistance of foreign powers,” the seized fuel is now in “US custody.”
With both countries under heavy US sanctions, Venezuela and Iran are natural trading partners. Venezuela is facing a gasoline shortage, with US sanctions making it impossible for the oil-rich country to process oil into gasoline. Iranian tankers carrying gas made it to Venezuela in May, drawing the ire of Washington.
Not so much seized as redirected. Possibly the U.S. even paid for the gasoline.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-cargo-warrant/ship-owners-sailing-four-iranian-fuel-cargoes-to-u-s-for-seizure-idUSKCN25A025
Violating U.S. sanctions would have legal repercussions for the shipowners, and the cargoes were possibly not officially paid for by Venezuela either.
Venezuela is claiming no foul, its likely that the cargoes may have been destined for Venezuela, but not actually sold to anyone there yet.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-cargo-official-idUSKCN25A17D
Let us see. Generally speaking I follow Reuters only to find out what official line is.
Reuters and Associated Press are Zionist fronts…!
Give the “Zionist” nonsense a rest. They’re private companies, driven by money and profits, not by making Israel dominant over their neighbors or end times prophecies.
What what companies told Trump to hand over Jerusalem to Israel and asserted that the Golan Heights now belong to Israel…?
Do you ask yourself if the line is factual and conforms to common sense? Venezuela and Iran are not crying foul. This is widely reported as well, on MSM and alt news.
Being political rather than critically thoughtful about the sources of facts leads to ignorance and blind partisanship.
Millions of people read the MSM and depend on them for reasonably accurate information – including the official lines to read between.
Even alt news sites source from original news sources like Reuters, because Reuters, AP, and others have decades of experience and longstnading reliable information networks.
Its the spin and omissions one has to watch out for, while being grateful anything is more or less freely reported at all.
Have we seen this kind of underhanded behavior before? Well, yes, actually. PPE poaching during the COVID-19 crisis. Poaching is probably far more common than reported in other commodities as well.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/trade/491050-german-official-accuses-us-of-wild-west-tactics-after-shipment-of
Anybody reading Antiwar for any length of time should know Reuters is corporate media like Associated Press. You might as well link to CNN.
Or OANN for that matter
true—“censorship reflects a society that has no confidence in itself”. Potter Stewart
after Geoffrey Gorer wrote, ‘The Great Russian People’, he observed the extraordinary insecurity amongst amerikans—after examining the curriculum in soviet schools and the Soviet media, he described the censorship in US schools/media as “ludicrous”. Indeed GeorgiDerlugian wrote recently in the Jacobin, “amerikan academia is far more effectively censored than was Soviet academia”
Being political about where one gets hard facts leads to ignorance and fuels blind partisanship.
Jacking cargoes legally is apparently not unusual. During COVID-19, paid-for shipments of PPE are being diverted by little more than making a better offer.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/trade/491050-german-official-accuses-us-of-wild-west-tactics-after-shipment-of
The MSM does still report real news; its the spin and the omissions that have to be filtered for.
Lol, bought under terms they could not refuse. Nice try.
You would prefer violence instead? The shipowners could refuse; they would also have to pay for a lengthy legal battle.
Odds are, they could have eventually won, except, dodgy ship owners who deal with Iran, probably have a long history of other sketchy cargoes. The NSA would have all the scuttlebutt
Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s CFO Meng is an example of how far the Anglo antipathy to Iran goes. This isn’t just the U.S. and Israel.
Its more useful to note, commandos weren’t sent in to seize the ships, like the British did.
The aggression is contained. For now, neither Iran or Venezuela can play on that legal-economic battlefield.
The US is a pirate nation and the world’s biggest bully.
Perhaps, but who commands the bully? France invited the U.S. into Vietnam, Libya, and the African Sahel.
Israel, is probably the dog, not just the tail that wags the dog.
This is a Criminal Act ofHigh Seas Piracy and an Act of War.
You might well think that; but the neocons declare, and the courts and the pols have upheld, the US assertion of “exceptionalism”.
Yes it is. And our President (who has no clothes) has admitted it.
Nothing happened on the high seas, it was all done by lubbers on land wielding legal cash and influence, not pistols and cutlasses.
If the U.S. wanted to engage in piracy, well, Congress can still issue letters of marque and reprisal for the President to sign.
The U.S. is apparently still not signatory to the Paris Declaration of 1856, in which nations renounce the use of privateers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
This really isn’t unusual dirty gaming. During the COVID-19 crisis, poaching paid-for cargoes of PPE otherwise destined for other recipients with a better offer, is apparently a thing.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/trade/491050-german-official-accuses-us-of-wild-west-tactics-after-shipment-of
Iran is denying its their fuel so its not clear who the legal owner is. One thing is sure the US did not seize the tankers with force, the ship owners were threatened with heavy sanction penalties & just complied. Nothing prevents Iran from using its own tankers like they did in June, US cant do anything about that
The penalties are ultimately enforced with the gun. No difference.
The US is the world’s biggest bully and I eagerly await seeing them get their well-deserved comeuppance.
Euphemism! Evil comes closer to describing the US.
Sure, tell that to Huawei. No markets, no suppliers, no gun needed to freeze them out of at least Western economies.
Last time, the US was reportedly attempting to bribe the ship captains with millions of dollars as well as issuing threats.
That’s all the US has left – threats.
Think about Canada’s thousand-dollar COVID-19 fines.
Very effective and very threatening.
Trump is nothing more than a goddamn pirate. I’ve had enough of his regime. And I supported the sonofabitch…
Unfortunately, this act of piracy would likely have surely happened under either a Hillary of Biden administration. It was an Israeli-ordered act of war. Both parties regularly roll over for the Zios.
The point is that Trump is no swamp-drainer, he’s a water carrier for the War Party.
Depends. I doubt the same sequence of events would have happened if we had met our obligations under the JCPOA.
Sheer lies by Trump….! Even if it is true, it is not Iranian fuel/oil any longer, it is Venezuelans…!
‘Funny how there’s very little mention of this piracy, even by the Trump-hating left.
It’s all about ‘what’s good for Israel’.
…either that, or this seems relatively minor to the average Trump-hating lefty compared to Trump putting a campaign donor as the head of the USPS, followed by the removal of high-volume mail sorting machines and drop boxes in so-called ‘blue’ parts of the country, for the express purpose of making it more difficult to vote by mail during a pandemic. Plus, that story will draw many more viewers to privately-owned cable news programs than oil tankers being seized, and result in more $$$ for privately-owned cable news. Why would a private company act in a way to hurt their bottom line?
I think next time Venezuela will use their own tankers and from what I understand they have asked Russia for escorts.
Well that should be interesting.
Won’t do any good–Putin is a wuss.
Putin is certainly cautious. The Russian Navy was not designed to police the world, just defend Russia.
That’s a good thing, and a responsible thing, but comes with foreign policy limitations.
According to Javad Zarif the fuel was FOB in the Persian Gulf, no loss to the Iranians:
https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1294665845810040833
damn the blockade
… Full speed ahead!!!!
Which will probably eventually happen. The illicit Iran trade has probably near maxed out.
Isn’t that Piracy on High Sea ? & as far as I know, it’s still punishable by hanging from yardarm…
That I would dearly love to see!
Well, as far as I know, hanging for high sea piraci is still in the Law of the Seas ….As far as I know, UK has abolished the Dead Penalty, but kept it for Piracy ..Correct me if I’m wrong …
The US = “Pirate Nation”. They are now a rogue state. I hope I live long enough to see them get their well-deserved comeuppance.
Does this theft make us all a nation of thieves or is there some way to separate ourselves from these crinimal actions without denouncing ones citizenship.? How about when this government assassinates or bombs a bunch of innocent people, do all Americans share the guilt.?
Every morning when I wake up I give a little prayer of thanks that I’m not an American.
Sheesh, rub it in, be nice
But is the government in which you live under subservient to the US? If so, it’s just as bad.
Tehran’s oil minister denied ownership of four vessels and their cargo previously seized by the US on the high seas, after Washington dubbed it the “largest-ever seizure of Iranian fuel.”
“Neither the ships nor their cargo belong to Iran, but this shipment included gasoline sold by Iran to Venezuela,” Bijan Zanganeh, the oil minister of Iran, was quoted as saying by IRNA state news agency.
Wonder how much Iranian gas was actually seized….
Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh has reiterated that the cargo of oil tankers reportedly seized by the United States last week was not Iranian.
“These shipments included Iranian gasoline that was sold FOB (free on board) to Venezuela; so the United States has not confiscated the property of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the property of Venezuela,” he said.
FOB defn:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fob.asp
Learn something new every day.
Looks like Iran was expecting trouble and did not trust their middlmen.
Exactly.
This is piracy on the high seas. Time to use China and Russia re-flagged tankers. Let’s see what the “Great Satan” will do then.