President Donald Trump said Wednesday that U.S. officials have seized a “very large” oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a major escalation of the administration’s months of efforts to punish the South American petrostate.
“As you probably know we have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Trump said at an event at the White House. “It was seized for a very good reason.”
The White House did not provide additional details about the vessel. But a person familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive seizure, said the ship was en route to Cuba, where the state firm Cubametales was planning to sell it to Asian energy brokers.
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed in an X post that the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the Coast Guard “executed a seizure warrant” on the vessel, which she said was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
