Venezuela Claims U.S. Seized Oil Tanker

Officials from Venezuela’s socialist regime, led by Maduro, have asserted that President Donald Trump has “admitted” to “stealing” an oil tanker near their coast.

During a press briefing at the White House, Trump announced that the U.S. had taken control of an oil tanker that was heading towards Cuba. Reports indicate that this vessel was engaged in the illegal smuggling of Iranian oil and was carrying Venezuelan crude oil at the time of its capture.

Trump stated, “We just captured a tanker off the coast of Venezuela. A large tanker, a very large tanker. The largest tanker ever captured in combat. And there are other things that are happening as well. So you’ll see that later. And I’ll talk to some other people about that later.”

The Maduro administration interpreted Trump’s remarks as a “confession” of a U.S. scheme to “steal” oil from Venezuela.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez expressed in a Telegram message, “The mask has come off and the truth has come out. The United States’ real objective is to steal Venezuela’s oil and illegally take it without paying anything. This is an international crime, and it will be held accountable.” She added that Venezuela would take its claims to international organizations, stressing that their people would unite to protect their resources.

Rodríguez shared a statement from the Maduro government that rejected the tanker seizure, describing it as “an act of international piracy announced by the president of the United States who has confessed to attacking oil tankers in the Caribbean.”

Part of the statement mentioned, “In this situation, the real reason behind the long-term aggression against Venezuela has finally been exposed. It is not immigration, it is not drug trafficking, it is not democracy, it is not human rights. The issue has always been about our natural resources, oil, energy, and resources that belong only to the Venezuelan people.”

In a similar vein, Diosdado Cabello, the Minister of Home Affairs, accused Trump of participating in a “raid” on the oil tanker, claiming that the U.S. aims to “steal the oil, steal the gold, steal the gas, steal the water.” He described this as a “direct attack” on Venezuela’s resources.

Cabello added, “They believe that all the spiritual terrorism they are inflicting on the Venezuelan people these days will bring us to our knees, but they are wrong. Our people are happy.”

Additionally, he warned of factions within Venezuela that support these actions, while also expressing frustration at the complaints about them, indicating, “we are recording them.” Cabello also suggested that the seizure was a tactic to shift focus away from opposition leader María Colina Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize win, stating that it was an effort to mask the “disaster they caused in Norway.”