President Trump on Tuesday issued a post on Truth Social where he declared a “total and complete blockade” of all “sanctioned oil tankers” going into or out of Venezuela, as he continues to take aggressive action against the country with the aim of ousting President Nicolas Maduro.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before,” Trump said in his post, which came less than a week after US forces boarded and seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
The president said the blockade, an action that’s generally considered an act of war under international law, would continue until Venezuela “returns” its own oil and land to the US, underscoring that Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the largest in the world, are a primary motive in Trump’s effort at regime change.
“Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” Trump wrote. The president appears to be referring to the nationalization of oil projects under Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, who forced foreign-run projects to be converted into joint ventures in which Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, held a majority stake.
Some Western oil companies accepted Chavez’s terms, including the US firm Chevron, which continues to operate in Venezuela today, while others rejected the deal — most notably ExxonMobil — exited the country, and sued the Venezuelan government in international arbitration over the expropriations. But the oil remains the property of the Venezuelan state, and it’s unclear what Trump means when he claims Venezuelan “land” was stolen from the US.
Trump also claimed that Maduro’s government was a “Foreign Terrorist Organization,” referring to his administration designating a non-existent cartel, called the “Cartel of the Suns,” as an FTO and claiming Maduro is its leader.
The term Cartel of the Suns, or Cartel de los Soles, was first used in the early 1990s to describe Venezuelan generals with sun insignias on their uniforms who were involved in cocaine trafficking and were actually working with the CIA at the time.
Today, the Cartel of the Suns is used to describe a network of Venezuelan officials allegedly involved in the drug trade, but it doesn’t exist as a structured organization. Regardless of the facts, the Trump administration appears ready to use the non-existent cartel as a pretext to launch a war.
In his post, Trump also accused the Venezuelan government of sending “Illegal Aliens and Criminals” into the US during the Biden administration, while also acknowledging Maduro was cooperating with the US on deportation flights by saying they are “being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace.”
Trump concluded his post by saying, “America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries, to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation and, likewise, will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, IMMEDIATELY.”
