By Kit Maher, Kevin Liptak, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was ordering a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving from Venezuela, ratcheting up pressure against leader Nicolás Maduro’s regime and suggesting an economic motive to the US’ military campaign in the region.
Punctuating the words “total and complete blockade” in capital letters in a Truth Social post, Trump pointed to the large collection of US military assets in the region, suggested more could be coming and took aim at Maduro’s regime by name. He also suggested Venezuela give up land, oil and assets to the United States, making clear that one aim of his military campaign is not just about countering the drug trade.
“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 — 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 said Tuesday night.
Combined with Trump’s threat of land strikes on Venezuelan soil, the move ratcheted up pressure on Caracas by going after its economic lifeline, which had already come under strain after new sanctions on the oil sector earlier this year and last week’s seizure of a tanker full of Venezuelan oil.
It also underscored Trump’s focus on the country’s oil, which he has said the US should have access to if Maduro is ousted. State-owned Petróleos de Venezuela controls the country’s petroleum industry. Houston-based Chevron is the only US firm drilling in Venezuela and pays a percentage of its output to PDVSA under a sanctions carve-out.
American companies had a much larger presence in Venezuela’s oil fields until the country put the sector under state control in the 1970s. Trump has made little secret his desire for the US to return to the country’s oil industry.
Venezuela’s oil reserves are the world’s largest but operate well below capacity due to international sanctions. Much of the country’s oil is sold to China.
The US government has imposed sanctions on Venezuela since 2005, and the first Trump administration in 2019 effectively blocked all crude exports to the United States from PDVSA. Then-President Joe Biden in 2022 granted Chevron a permit to operate in Venezuela as part of an effort to lower gas prices. Trump revoked that license in March but later reissued on condition that no proceeds go to the Maduro government.
In his Truth Social post, Trump accused “the illegitimate Maduro regime” of using stolen oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping.”
The Trump administration has launched strikes at suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean, and the president has said repeatedly strikes on land will come soon. Officials had largely framed the operation as being about countering the narcotics trade, but on Tuesday, Vanity Fair published interviews in which White House chief of staff Susie Wiles indicated the effort was about putting pressure on Maduro to step aside.
CNN has reached out to the White House and US Southern Command, responsible for military operations in most of Latin America and the Caribbean, for more information on the blockade.
Speaking before Trump’s announcement, Maduro praised Venezuela for having “proven to be a strong country” against the US pressure campaign.
“Venezuela has [spent] 25 weeks denouncing, confronting and defeating a campaign of multidimensional aggression, ranging from ps