This is the dramatic moment US forces stormed an oil tanker as the Trump administration throttles Venezuela’s geopolitical lifeline.
Video posted on X showed troops rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of The Veronica in a pre-dawn seizure in the Caribbean on Thursday.
Marines and sailors captured the vessel without incident, the military command responsible for Central, South America and the Caribbean said on X.
‘The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,’ it said. The tanker is the sixth seized in recent weeks.
Donald Trump is set to meet Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado later today at the White House.
Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump last year, has urged the president to ramp up his pressure campaign following the capture of Communist dictator Nicolas Maduro on January 3 in Caracas.
She told CBS on Wednesday: ‘We need to increase the cost of staying in power by force. Once you arrive to that point in which the cost of staying in power is higher than the cost of leaving power, the regime will fall apart.’
Machado fled the country last week where Maduro’s deputy Delcy Rodríguez is now ruling with Trump’s endorsement – though under constant US threat.
Video posted on X showed troops rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of The Veronica in a pre-dawn seizure in the Caribbean
Marines and sailors seized the vessel without incident, the military command responsible for Central, South America and the Caribbean said on social media.
Donald Trump tours the assembly line at the Ford River Rouge Complex in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks during a press conference in Oslo, Norway December 11
Trump said yesterday he had a ‘great conversation’ with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was seized and flown to the US to face drug-trafficking charges.
‘We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,’ Trump said during a bill signing in the Oval Office. ‘And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.’
Rodríguez said her government would continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro rule in what she described as ‘a new political moment’ in her first public press conference since taking power, delivered on Wednesday.
The Maduro loyalist is walking a tightrope as she is tasked with placating an unpredictable president who has said he will ‘run’ Venezuela, while also consolidating power in a government that resents American interference.
Trump has enlisted Rodríguez to help secure US control over Venezuela’s oil sales despite sanctioning her for human rights violations during his first term.
To ensure she does his bidding, earlier this month, Trump threatened Rodríguez with a ‘situation probably worse than Maduro,’ who is being held in a Brooklyn jail.
Senate Republicans voted Wednesday to dismiss a war powers resolution that would have limited the president’s ability to conduct further attacks on Venezuela after two GOP rebels backed down, cementing Trump’s kingmaking.
Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation.
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez waves next to National Assembly president Jorge Rodriguez (left) and Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello during a press conference regarding the release of prisoners in Venezuela at Miraflores Palace on January 14
Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana flipped under the pressure.
Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.
The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over his aggressive foreign policy ambitions.
