President Trump says there will be a “total and complete blockade” of certain oil tankers coming from Venezuela as he builds pressure on President Maduro to leave his position. As part of that pressure campaign, the United States has already seized at least one oil tanker and the Defense Department says strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean will not cease. 

Mr. Trump’s announcement of a blockade on Tuesday night came on the same day that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told senators that the military campaign in the Caribbean will continue. Mr. Hegseth told reporters after the briefing that an unedited video of a strike in September — which allegedly shows an illegal second strike on a disabled boat — would not be shared with all lawmakers. 

Demands for congressional oversight may only grow louder in the wake of the new blockade. 

“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,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday night. 

He says that “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets” that Mr. Maduro “stole” from the United States must be returned, though he did not offer specifics. 

“For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Mr. Trump wrote Tuesday night. “Therefore, today, I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.”

U.S. Southern Command has already moved an historic number of assets into the region, apparently in preparation for this blockade. According to one analysis conducted by a non-profit research and news outlet, The Conversation, the United States has not had such a heavy military presence in the region since the intervention in Haiti in 1994. 

The most notable military asset now in the southern Caribbean is the U.S.S Gerald Ford, an aircraft carrier which was moved into the region last month. American forces have already taken control of one oil tanker which came from a company subject to sanctions, Mr. Trump said last week. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification about which oil companies would have tankers seized if they tried to cross the blockade. The most likely companies to be subject to Mr. Trump’s new restrictions are Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA — the country’s state-owned energy company — and a group of smaller firms targeted by the Treasury Department last week. 

“The Illegal Aliens and Criminals that the Maduro Regime has sent into the United States during the weak and inept Biden Administration, are being returned to Venezuela at a rapid pace. America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries, to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation,” the president declared on Truth Social.