Published On 10 Dec 2025
The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, where President Donald Trump has been threatening military action for the last several months.
The news outlets Reuters and Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the US Coast Guard had led an operation to commandeer the vessel, but details of its name and location remain uncertain. President Trump confirmed the news shortly after.
“We’ve just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela – large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump said during an event at the White House. “And other things are happening. So you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”
The Trump administration has ramped up threats against Venezuela, deploying considerable military forces to the region, carrying out a campaign of lethal strikes targeting alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and threatening that land operations could follow.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that the US is seeking to topple the government and has said that the country’s armed forces would resist a military attack from the US. Oil exports are a key source of revenue for the South American country, which exported more than 900,000 barrels per day last month.
More to come…
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/10/trump-admin-seizes-oil-tanker-off-venezuela-coast-reports?traffic_source=rss
