Critics decry ‘piracy’ as Trump seizes oil tanker off Venezuela coast

US President Donald Trump ignited a political storm on Wednesday after announcing that American forces had seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast — a move critics immediately condemned as reckless, provocative and veering into outright piracy.

The decision to commandeer a commercial vessel stunned observers, marking one of the most extreme steps yet in the administration’s pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. Trump’s government has already deployed the largest US military footprint in the region in decades, expanded deadly maritime interdictions and justified it all under the banner of counter-narcotics — a justification that lawmakers and analysts say is wearing increasingly thin.

Yet Trump boasted of the operation as though it were routine. “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” he declared. He then added, almost flippantly, that “it was seized for a very good reason”. Asked what the US would do with the oil on board, he replied: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

Such remarks only intensified alarm. A US official, speaking anonymously, confirmed that the Coast Guard led the seizure with Navy support and that it was framed as a law-enforcement action — a justification many legal experts say will face scrutiny.

In scenes more reminiscent of wartime operations than law enforcement, Coast Guard personnel were flown by helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, currently deployed to the Caribbean in what Trump has billed as a show of force.

A video posted by attorney-general Pam Bondi showed armed officers fast-roping onto the tanker’s deck, the helicopter hovering just metres above, before teams swept through the ship with weapons drawn.

Bondi claimed the tanker had been “sanctioned…for multiple years” because of its alleged links to an illicit oil-smuggling network supporting foreign terrorist organisations.

Venezuela’s government reacted with fury, calling the seizure “a blatant theft and an act of international piracy”. Its statement added: “Under these circumstances, the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. … It has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.”

The vessel — identified as the Skipper — departed Venezuela around 2 December carrying about 2 million barrels of heavy crude, documents from PDVSA show. Half the cargo reportedly belonged to a Cuban state-run importer.

The Skipper previously sailed as the M/T Adisa, sanctioned by Washington in 2022 for allegedly belonging to a covert fleet smuggling oil for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah via a web of shell companies.

Venezuela, home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves, now produces about 1 million barrels a day, with PDVSA relying on opaque intermediaries since the Trump administration deepened sanctions in 2020. The result has been a murky trade system involving ghost ships, offshore transfers and circumvention routes enabled by allies like Russia and Iran.

Maduro, speaking at a pro-government rally, avoided mentioning the tanker directly but insisted Venezuela was “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary”, repeating his claim that Washington’s real objective is to topple him.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a senior Democrat, blasted the seizure as further proof that the administration’s justification for its military surge — stopping drug traffickers — is collapsing. “This shows that their whole cover story — that this is about interdicting drugs — is a big lie,” he said. “This is just one more piece of evidence that this is really about regime change by force.”

The tanker raid followed a provocative US fighter jet flyover near the Gulf of Venezuela, the closest American aircraft have come to the country’s airspace. Trump has openly floated the prospect of land operations, saying they are “coming soon” without elaboration.

With AP/PTI inputs