Maduro

US President Donald Trump warned Nicolas Maduro to ‘not play tough’ and to step down on Monday, while the Venezuelan leader said Trump should focus on the issues in his own country. Trump told reporters the US will keep 1.9 million barrels of oil that were seized near Venezuela in December.

United States President Donald Trump has issued a new warning to Nicolas Maduro, saying “it would be smart” for the Venezuelan leader to leave power, as Washington escalates a pressure campaign against Caracas.

The warning on Monday came as Russia pledged “full support” for Maduro’s government, and China condemned the US’s seizure of two oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela.

Trump, speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida alongside his top national security aides, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, suggested that he remains ready to further escalate his four-month pressure campaign.

When asked if the ⁠goal was to force Maduro from power, Trump told reporters: “Well, I think it probably would… That’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it’d be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re gonna find out.”

“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the ​last time he’s ever able to play ‌tough,” he added.

Trump levied his latest threat as the US coastguard continued for a second day to chase a third oil tanker that it described as part of a “dark fleet” that Venezuela uses to evade US sanctions.

“It’s moving along, and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said.

The US president also promised to keep the ships and the nearly 4 million barrels of Venezuelan oil the coastguard has seized so far.

“Maybe we’ll sell it. Maybe we’ll keep it. Maybe we will use it in the strategic reserves,” he said. “We’re keeping it. We’re keeping the ships also.”

Maduro fires back

Trump’s campaign against Venezuela’s vital oil sector comes amid a large US military buildup in the region with a stated mission of combating drug trafficking, as well as more than two dozen strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea near the South American nation.

Critics have questioned the legality of the attacks, which have killed more than 100 people.

Venezuela denies any involvement in drug trafficking and insists that Washington is seeking to overthrow Maduro to seize the country’s oil reserves, which are the world’s largest.

It has condemned the US’s vessel seizures as acts of “international piracy”.

Maduro fired back at Trump hours after the latest warning, saying the US president would be “better off” if he focused on his own country’s problems rather than threatening Caracas.

“He would be better off in his own country on economic and social issues, and he would be better off in the world if he took care of his country’s affairs,” Maduro said in a speech broadcast on public television.

The exchange of words came on the eve of a United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday to discuss the growing crisis.

Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, in a phone call with his Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil, slammed the US’s actions and expressed support for Caracas.

“The ministers expressed their deep concern over the escalation of Washington’s actions in the Caribbean Sea, which could have serious consequences for the region and threaten international shipping,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

“The Russian side reaffirmed its full support for and solidarity with the Venezuelan leadership and people in the current context,” it added.

US blockade

China also condemned the US’s latest moves as a “serious violation of international law”.

“China opposes any actions that violate the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and infringe upon the sovereignty and security of other countries,” said Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“Venezuela has the right to develop independently and engage in a mutually beneficial cooperation with other nations. China understands and supports Venezuela’s stance in safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests,” he added.

Last week, Rubio brushed aside Moscow’s stated support for Caracas.

Washington, he said, was “not concerned about an escalation with Russia with regards to Venezuela” as “they have their hands full in Ukraine”.

US-Russia relations have soured in recent weeks as Trump has voiced frustration with Moscow over the lack of a resolution on the war in Ukraine

Gil, on Monday, also read a letter on state television, signed by Maduro and addressed to UN member nations, warning that the US blockade “will affect the supply of oil and energy” globally.

“Venezuela reaffirms its vocation for peace, but also declares with absolute clarity that it is prepared to defend its sovereignty, its territorial integrity and its resources in accordance with international law,” he said.

“However, we responsibly warn that these aggressions will not only impact Venezuela. The blockade and piracy against Venezuelan energy trade will affect oil and energy supply, increase instability in international markets, and hit the economies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world, especially in the most vulnerable countries.”

On September 1, at an international press conference convened in response to threats from the U.S. government, Nicolás Maduro declared: “The Miami mafia has seized political power in the White House and the State Department; they have imposed their extremist Miami-centric vision and have ‘Miamisized’ U.S. foreign policy toward all of Latin America and the Caribbean; because threatening Venezuela is threatening the entire continent.”

This statement fits with a script distributed through Siscom, the messaging system used by Venezuela’s Ministry for Communication and Information to send orders to media and digital activists. “The U.S. warmongering maneuver is driven by extremist sectors in South Florida, representing less than 10% of the U.S. population, who seek to impose their agenda on the entire country, ignoring the majorities who oppose wars and want the government to focus on internal problems,” reads a paragraph from the document. 

La Hora de Venezuela obtained several of these scripts, distributed between March and September 2025 to 40,000 users participating in more than 600 Siscom groups. The main messages: the entire nation is enlisting as if it were Vietnam, while at the same time there is an atmosphere of calm and normalcy. But the scripts also aim to influence public discourse in the United States, by contrasting the “Miami lobby” with America First and MAGA, framing a military escalation against Venezuela as a useless cost in the face of its internal problems.

The propaganda apparatus takes phrases from U.S. politicians, analysts, and media outlets and amplifies to validate its propaganda and disinformation narratives. 

On December 3, 2025, Democratic Representative Jim McGovern announced that he would introduce a resolution to force a vote in Congress against the Trump administration’s “crazy escalations” against Venezuela. “No one, except the president and his billionaire allies, wants this war,” McGovern stated. 

A few hours later, Madelein García, a journalist for Telesur—the international propaganda channel dependent on the Venezuelan Ministry for Communication and Information—quoted and translated McGovern’s post. It wasn’t necessary for journalists, media outlets, or communicators allied to his government to claim that Washington was divided: it was enough to amplify the message of a congressman speaking from within the U.S. political system, while avoiding the sound of propaganda.

In general, McGovern’s statement echoed talking points included in an operational manual formatted as a slide presentation that had been circulated months earlier through Siscom, on August 29, by Johannyl Rodríguez, Venezuela’s vice minister of Communication and Information. Page 7 of that script includes, for example, phrases such as “Rubio does not speak for MAGA; he speaks for the war lobbies” and “His agenda does not respond to the popular movement that backed Trump, but rather to military corporations and extremist minorities.”

García’s quote of McGovern served as external validation for narratives that the Maduro administration is trying to position. There was no need for sympathetic journalists, outlets, or communicators to talk about divisions in Washington over Venezuela: amplifying a Democratic lawmaker from within the U.S. political system was enough to make the framing sound less like official propaganda.

Days earlier, on November 29, 2025, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer had also questioned the policy toward Venezuela, arguing that it didn’t align with the “America First” principle, alluding to the unnecessary expenditure of resources and internal priorities. 

Schumer’s argument also resonated with ideas already laid out in the August 29 presentation: the split between America First and war, and the cost of escalation for ordinary citizens. Among the lines in the script sent by the Maduro Ministry of Communication official includes lines such as: “Trump promised to prioritize U.S. interests over military adventures,” “War impoverishes the people: trillions of dollars are lost in foreign conflicts while poverty, inflation, and the housing crisis persist at home,” and “Why fund interventions around the world when millions of citizens work two or three jobs just to survive?”

Venezuela News, an “unofficial” mouthpiece for pro-Maduro propaganda—and a frequent amplifier of disinformation—reported Schumer’s statements as further proof that figures in the Democratic leadership are questioning the coherence and legitimacy of an escalation against Venezuela. 

On September 2, Juan González—former director for the Western Hemisphere at the Council of National Security during the Biden administration—questioned the logic of the military deployment in the Caribbean: “So the U.S. government is using false information to justify a terrorist designation and then spending at least $7 million a day to have a carrier strike group kill 11 traffickers…?” Days later, the Venezuelan News Agency (AVN) turned it into a headline (“Former Biden advisor denounces false information and million-dollar waste”). González’s comment was also reported by Venezuela News and Globovisión.

Once again, the framing was perfect for amplifying the script’s narratives, without the need to manufacture the message through Maduro’s propaganda apparatus.

Creating discord between Maga and Rubio

Alongside narratives about America First and the unnecessary use of U.S. public resources, the scripts distributed by Siscom also lay out another divisive line: portraying U.S. policy toward Venezuela as the result of an internal fracture, in which a minority—associated with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several Florida Cuban politicians—drags the country into an escalation unwanted by the rest of the population.

These guidelines aim to intervene in the U.S. public conversation from within, seeking to sow discord by amplifying pre-existing tensions between the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement and parts of Washington’s political apparatus.

The same script sent by Siscom on August 29, for example, defines staging guidelines for content that includes “short, direct material that connects with the MAGA audience.” Another section features “impact phrases” such as “Rubio does not speak for MAGA; he speaks for the war lobbies,” “Trump defends America First; Rubio puts his interests first,” or “Florida cannot impose a war in Latin America on the rest of the United States.”

Extra News Mundo, another “unofficial” source of Venezuelan propaganda, and “Unleash Dracarys,” (pseudonym used by Dayra Rivas, Director of Digital Media at Information Ministry), published a video to multiply the reaction of right wing activist Laura Loomer -who opposes military action in Venezuela- against an interview to Cuban American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, a supporter of Machado. The video reiterates the “MAGA vs. Florida” trope recommended in the Siscom script: Cuban politicians in Florida are trying to impose a war on Trump.

Everyone is happy

Regarding the story line of “everything is fine in Venezuela and nobody is afraid of Trump,” the Maduro propaganda took advantage of a December 4 photo essay in The New York Times, which opens with a video of a group of Caracas residents dancing salsa in a nightclub and showcases scenes of concerts, baseball games, and Christmas celebrations in a country seemingly at peace. At the same time, the piece warns that the surveillance by security forces has stifled open expression of dissent and concludes with a question: whether this tranquility can truly be believed.

A summarized version of the article, published on The New York Times’ Instagram account, received over a thousand comments, at least half of which were negative or dismissive. The carousel opened with the same video of Venezuelans dancing salsa, but the final point of the report—the question of whether this calm is real—was relegated to the background. Its celebratory tone resonated with several pieces of reassuring propaganda that began appearing more frequently. 

Since mid-November, at least five videos of Venezuelans dancing and celebrating were shared through Nicolás Maduro’s official Telegram channel. In one of them, Maduro was seen dancing and calling for a party every day of the week. All of this content was massively and coordinatedly amplified by state media and digital activist networks, in line with the Street, Networks, Media, Walls, and Word of Mouth Method signed by Maduro, that broadly defines the government’s information operation.

That same approach also appears laid out as an operational line in another playbook circulated through Siscom. In a presentation sent on August 26, ahead of the launch of the #YoMeAlisto campaign, it explains: “Psychological warfare is defeated with images of peace, discipline, and normality,” and “Our response is to show that the country does not grind to a halt, that it continues producing, working, and moving forward.”

Even more explicit was the exploitation of another New York Times article, published on November 26, 2025, which compiled criticisms from former diplomats, experts, and opposition figures regarding statements attributed to María Corina Machado. The article warns that, amid the Trump administration’s military deployment in the Caribbean, some voices fear that false claims are being exaggerated or disseminated to justify intervention, and mentions “debunked claims” on issues of drug trafficking and security.

The report also echoed propaganda lines included in government scripts that present the “war on drugs” as a pretext for continuing the escalation and militarization of the Caribbean. In the script sent on August 29, for example, one line appears particularly clear: “The Cartel of the Suns is a media fabrication to justify aggression,” along with others that maintain that the U.S. uses this framework to promote regime change and expand its presence in the region.

Screenshots of that New York Times article were quickly seized upon by a network of propaganda video creators. The campaign attempted to reinforce a line already present in Siscom documents: to discredit María Corina Machado, presenting her as a source of disinformation that is pushing the United States toward intervention. An opportune corollary to the more than 80 hoaxes and disinformation incidents directed against Machado from Maduro’s communications apparatus in 2024 and 2025. 

Journalism in Venezuela operates in a hostile environment for the press, with dozens of legal instruments designed to punish speech, such as the laws “against hate,” “against fascism,” and “against the blockade.” This content was produced by journalists who are in Venezuela and is being published with full awareness of the threats and constraints that, as a result, have been imposed on the dissemination of information from within the country.

The United States is reviving a policy first set out in the 1800s that treats Latin America as its strategic sphere of influence. As Washington expands maritime operations in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, critics warn of legal violations and rising regional instability.

Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin joins Talk to Al Jazeera to discuss US strikes, Venezuela, migration pressures, and China’s growing role in the region — and whether diplomacy can still prevent escalation in a hemisphere shaped once again by power politics.

The United States Department of the Treasury has announced new sanctions on several family members and associates of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the Trump administration increases pressure on Caracas and continues to build up US forces on Venezuela’s borders.

The sanctions announced on Friday come as the US military continues attacks on boats off the country’s coast, which have killed more than 100 people. The US military has also seized a Venezuelan oil tanker and imposed a naval blockade on all vessels arriving and departing from Venezuelan ports that are under US sanctions.

Announcing the new sanctions, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement that “Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability”.

“The Trump Administration will continue targeting the networks that prop up his illegitimate dictatorship,” Bessent added.

The new sanctions target seven people who are family members or associates of Malpica Flores, a nephew of Maduro, and Panamanian businessman Ramon Carretero, who were named in an earlier round of US sanctions that also targeted six Venezuela-flagged oil tankers and shipping firms, on December 11.

Flores, who is one of three of Maduro’s nephews by marriage, dubbed “narco-nephews” by the US Treasury Department, is wanted because he “has been repeatedly linked to corruption at Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA”, the Treasury said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how Flores’s role in Venezuela’s state-run oil company related to “propping up Nicolas Maduro’s rogue narco-state”, which Bessent said in his statement was the reason for widening sanctions to additional family members and associates of the president.

The US has claimed that tackling drug trafficking is the primary reason for its military escalation in the region since September, including the strikes on vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, which international law experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.

Despite the Trump administration’s repeated references to drug trafficking, its actions and messaging appear increasingly focused on Venezuela’s oil reserves, which are the largest in the world. The reserves have remained relatively untapped since sanctions were imposed on the country by the US during the first Trump administration.

Homeland Security adviser and top Trump aide Stephen Miller said last week that Venezuela’s oil belongs to Washington.

“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller claimed on X. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property,” he added.

US sanctions, particularly those targeting Venezuela’s oil industry, have contributed to an economic crisis in the country and increased discontent with Maduro, who has governed Venezuela since 2013.

For his part, Maduro has accused the Trump administration of “fabricating a new eternal war” aimed at “regime change” and seizing Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

The European Union has also imposed targeted sanctions on Venezuela, which it renewed last week until 2027.

The European sanctions, first introduced in 2017, include an embargo on arms shipments to Venezuela, as well as travel bans and asset freezes on individuals linked to state repression.

MEXICO CITY — President Trump has ordered a partial blockade on oil tankers going to and from Venezuela, potentially crippling the nation’s already battered economy, and accused Caracas of stealing “oil, land other assets” from the United States — a significant escalation of Washington’s unrelenting campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Asked about Venezuela on Wednesday, Trump said the United States will be “getting land, oil rights and whatever we had.”

“We want it back,” Trump said without further elaboration. It was unclear if Trump planned to say more about Venezuela in a televised address to the nation late Wednesday night.

The blockade, which aims to cripple the key component of Venezuela’s faltering, oil-dependent economy, comes as the Trump administration has bolstered military forces in the Caribbean, blown up more than two dozen boats allegedly ferrying illicit drugs in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, and threatened military strikes on Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a rambling post Tuesday night on his Truth Social site. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”

Not long after Trump announced the blockade Tuesday night, the government of Venezuela denounced the move and other Trump efforts as an attempt to “rob the riches that belong to our people.”

Leaders of other Latin American nations called for calm and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after a phone call with Maduro, called on U.N. members to “exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability.”

Also Wednesday, Trump received rare pushback from the Republican-dominated Congress, where some lawmakers are pressuring the administration to disclose more information about its deadly attacks on alleged drug boats.

The Senate gave final approval to a $900-billion defense policy package that, among other things, would require the administration to disclose to lawmakers specific orders behind the boat strikes along with unedited videos of the deadly attacks. If the administration does not comply, the bill would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget.

The bill’s passage came a day after Hegseth and Secretary Marco Rubio came to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers on the U.S. military campaign. The briefings left lawmakers with mixed reaction, largely with Republicans backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it.

The White House has said its military campaign in Venezuela is meant to curb drug trafficking, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data shows that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the U.S.-bound drug trade.

Trump also declared that the South American country had been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” That would apparently make Venezuela the first nation ever slapped with a classification normally reserved for armed groups deemed hostile to the United States or its allies. The consequences remain unclear for Venezuela.

Regional responses to the Trump threats highlight the new ideological fault lines in Latin America, where right-wing governments in recent years have won elections in Chile, Argentina and Ecuador.

The leftist leaders of the region’s two most populous nations — Brazil and Mexico — have called for restraint in Venezuela.

“Whatever one thinks about the Venezuelan government or the presidency of Maduro, the position of Mexico should always be: No to intervention, no to foreign meddling,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to look for a peaceful solution and avoid any bloodshed.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also urged Trump to pull back from confrontation. “The power of the word can outweigh the power of the gun,” Lula said he told Trump recently, offering to facilitate talks with the Maduro government.

But Chile’s right-wing president-elect, José Antonio Kast, said he supports regime-change in Venezuela, asserting that it would reduce migration from Venezuela to other nations in the region.

“If someone is going to do it, let’s be clear that it solves a gigantic problem for us and all of Latin America, all of South America, and even for countries in Europe,” Kast said, referring to Venezuelan immigration.

In his Tuesday post, Trump said he had ordered a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela.” While potentially devastating to Venezuela’s economy, the fact that the blockade will only affect tankers already sanctioned by U.S. authorities does give Venezuela some breathing room, at least for now.

Experts estimated that only between one-third and one-half of tankers transporting crude to and from Venezuela are likely part of the so-called “dark fleet” of sanctioned tankers. The ships typically ferry crude from Venezuela and Iran, two nations under heavy U.S. trade and economic bans.

However, experts said that even a partial blockade will be a major hit for Venezuela’s feeble economy, reeling under more than a decade of of U.S. penalties. And Washington can continue adding to the list of sanctioned tankers.

“The United States can keep sanctioning more tankers, and that would leave Venezuela with almost no income,” said David A. Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. “That would probably cause a famine in the country.”

The growing pressure, analysts said, will likely mean the diminishing number of firms willing to take the risk of transporting Venezuelan crude will up their prices, putting more pressure on Caracas. Purchasers in China and elsewhere will also likely demand price cuts to buy Venezuelan oil.

Trump has said that Maduro must go because he is a “narco-terrorist” and heads the “Cartel de los Soles,” which the While House calls is a drug-trafficking syndicate. Trump has put a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head. Experts say that Cartel de los Soles is not a functioning cartel, but a short-hand term for Venezuelan military officers who have been involved in the drug trade for decades, long before Maduro or his predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chávez, took office.

In his comments on Tuesday, Trump denounced the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, a process that began in the 1970s, when Caracas was a strong ally of Washington.

Echoing Trump’s point that Venezuela “stole” U.S. assets was Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security advisor, who declared on X: “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”

Among those believed to be driving Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro is Secretary of State Maro Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants to Florida. Rubio has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist governments in Havana and Caracas. Venezuelan oil has helped the economies of left-wing governments in both Cuba and Nicaragua.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said Rubio has been on a long-time campaign to remove Maduro.”He has his own political project,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get rid of the dictators in Venezuela and Cuba.”

Staff writers McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Ceballos from Washington. Contributing was special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas.

President Maduro’s rival was hurt as she sped on a boat through choppy waters in secret escape from hiding to reach Oslo ceremony.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was injured as she made a clandestine dash to collect her Nobel Peace Prize last week, her spokesperson has said.

Claudia Macero said late on Monday that the right-wing opposition figure fractured a vertebra during a choppy boat ride that had formed part of a risky cloak-and-dagger journey to reach the Norwegian capital, Oslo, for the Nobel award ceremony.

Machado has been in hiding since she was banned from running in Venezuela’s July 24 presidential election, fearing that her life is under threat from long-time Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“The vertebra fracture is confirmed,” Macero told the AFP news agency, adding that no further details would be released beyond what had been reported in the Norwegian daily Aftonbladet.

The newspaper had earlier reported that the 58-year-old Machado sustained the fracture while crossing the sea in a small fishing boat battered by high waves.

The opposition leader was examined by doctors at Oslo University Hospital during her time in the city.

Dangerous dash

Media reports in the United States said Machado’s escape last week involved wearing a disguise, including a wig, and travelling from a small Venezuelan fishing village on a wooden boat to the island of Curacao, before boarding a private plane to Norway.

Machado has said she feared for her life during the voyage, which saw US forces situated in the Caribbean alerted to avoid a strike on the vessel.

Several similar boats have been attacked in recent months in a campaign that the Trump administration asserts is a bid to avert drug smuggling into the US.

Maduro has accused Washington of seeking to engineer regime change in the hope of seizing Venezuela’s large oil reserves.

The leader of the opposition Vente Venezuela party was attempting to reach the ceremony at which she was due to be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was announced the winner of the prestigious award in October, with the selection committee praising her role in the country’s opposition movement and her “steadfast” support for democracy.

‘Broken soul’

Despite her speedy trip, Machado failed to reach Oslo in time for the ceremony. Her daughter received the award on her behalf and delivered a speech that slammed Maduro and warned of the need to fight for democracy.

Hours after the ceremony, early on Thursday morning, Machado greeted supporters from an Oslo hotel balcony in what was her first public appearance in a year.

Despite the fracture, she climbed over a barrier to greet supporters outside the hotel, AFP reported.

Machado said authorities in Venezuela would have attempted everything possible to prevent her journey to Norway.

Appearing set to challenge Maduro in the vote, the opposition leader was barred from running in the country’s presidential election in July last year.

She then announced that she would be going into hiding within Venezuela due to fear for her life while Maduro is in power.

The Venezuelan president commented dismissively on the reports of Machado’s injury on television on Monday.

Machado “says she has a broken vertebra”, he said. “What’s broken is her brain and her soul because she’s a demon – she hates Venezuela.”

The Trump administration has imposed new sanctions on Venezuela, targeting three nephews of President Nicolas Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, as well as six crude oil tankers and shipping companies linked to them, as Washington steps up pressure on Caracas.

Two of the sanctioned nephews were previously convicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges before being released as part of a prisoner exchange.

The US is also targeting Venezuela’s oil sector by sanctioning a Panamanian businessman, Ramon Carretero Napolitano, whom it says facilitates the shipment of petroleum products on behalf of the Venezuelan government, along with several shipping companies.

The US Treasury Department said on Thursday that the measures include sanctions on six crude oil tankers it said have “engaged in deceptive and unsafe shipping practices and continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s corrupt narco-terrorist regime”.

Four of the tankers, including the 2002-built H Constance and the 2003-built Lattafa, are Panama-flagged, with the other two flagged by the Cook Islands and Hong Kong.

The vessels are supertankers that recently loaded crude in Venezuela, according to internal shipping documents from state oil company PDVSA.

‘An act of piracy’

In comments on Thursday night, Trump also repeated his threat to soon begin strikes on suspected narcotics shipments making their way via land from Venezuela to the US.

His remarks followed the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US would take the tanker to a US port.

“The vessel will go to a US port, and the United States does intend to seize the oil,” Leavitt said during a news briefing. “However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed.”

Maduro condemned the seizure, calling it “an act of piracy against a merchant, commercial, civil and private vessel,” adding that “the ship was private, civilian and was carrying 1.9 million barrels of oil that they bought from Venezuela”.

He said the incident had “unmasked” Washington, arguing that the true motive behind the action was the seizure of Venezuelan oil.

“It is the oil they want to steal, and Venezuela will protect its oil,” Maduro added.

Maduro’s condemnation came as US officials emphasised that the latest sanctions also targeted figures close to the Venezuelan leader.

Maduro’s relatives targeted

Franqui Flores and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, were also sanctioned. The two became known as the “narco nephews” after their arrest in Haiti in 2015 during a US Drug Enforcement Administration sting.

They were convicted in 2016 on charges of attempting to carry out a multimillion-dollar cocaine deal and sentenced to 18 years in prison, before being released in a 2022 prisoner swap with Venezuela.

A third nephew, Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, was also targeted. US authorities allege he was involved in a corruption scheme at the state oil company.

Maduro and his government have denied links to criminal activity, saying the US is seeking regime change to gain control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Beyond the individuals targeted, the US is also preparing to intercept additional ships transporting Venezuelan oil, the Reuters news agency reported, citing sources.

Asked whether the Trump administration planned further ship seizures, White House spokesperson Leavitt told reporters she would not speak about future actions but said the US would continue executing the president’s sanctions policies.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said on Thursday.

Wednesday’s seizure was the first of a Venezuelan oil cargo amid US sanctions that have been in force since 2019. The move sent oil prices higher and sharply escalated tensions between Washington and Caracas.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday linked the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela to the Trump administration’s counterdrug efforts in Latin America as tensions escalate with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Noem’s assertion, which came during her testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee, provided the Republican administration’s most thorough explanation so far of why it took control of the vessel on Wednesday. Incredibly unusual, the use of U.S. forces to seize a merchant ship was a sharp escalation in the administration’s pressure campaign on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States.

Trump officials added to it Thursday by imposing sanctions on three of Maduro’s nephews. The Venezuelan leader discussed the rising tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin reaffirmed his support for Maduro’s policy of “protecting national interests and sovereignty in the face of growing external pressure.”

Asked to delineate the U.S. Coast Guard’s role in the tanker seizure, Noem called it “a successful operation directed by the president to ensure that we’re pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs and killing our next generation of Americans.”

Noem went on to lay out the ”lethal doses of cocaine” she said had been kept from entering the U.S. as a result.

Asked Thursday whether U.S. operations in the region were about drugs or oil, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also gave a bifurcated answer, saying the administration was “focused on doing many things in the Western Hemisphere.” She noted that such seizures could continue, arguing that the commodities being transported were used to fund the illegal drug trade.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” she said.

The Justice Department had obtained a warrant for the vessel because it had been known for “carrying black market, sanctioned oil,” Leavitt said, adding that “the United States does intend to get the oil” that was onboard the tanker.

Trump told reporters a day earlier at the White House that the tanker “was seized for a very good reason.” Asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, a campaign that is facing growing scrutiny from Congress.

Trump, who has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered more details, has broadly justified the moves as necessary to stem the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S.

Venezuela’s government said in a statement that the tanker seizure “constitutes a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.” Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Maria Corina Machado has declared that authorities in her home country would have attempted everything possible to prevent her journey to Norway, after she emerged publicly for the first time in nearly a year.

Machado greeted supporters from an Oslo hotel balcony in the early hours of Thursday following a high-risk exit from Venezuela, where she had been in hiding since January.

The journey, which purportedly included navigating 10 military checkpoints and crossing the Caribbean by fishing vessel, brought her to the Norwegian capital to collect her Nobel Peace Prize.

During a news conference at Norway’s parliament, the 58-year-old right-wing opposition figure delivered sharp criticism of President Nicolas Maduro’s administration, asserting that the government deploys national resources to suppress its population.

When questioned about an oil tanker seized by Washington on Wednesday, she argued this demonstrated how the regime operates. Asked whether she would support a United States invasion, Machado claimed Venezuela had already been invaded by Russian and Iranian agents alongside drug cartels.

“This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas,” she said, standing alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere.

“What sustains the regime is a very powerful and strongly funded repression system. Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.”

The trip reunited her with family members she had not seen in almost two years, including her daughter, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf at Wednesday’s ceremony.

Aligned with Trump 

The political leader has welcomed international sanctions and US military intervention in Venezuela, a move her critics say harkens back to a dark past.

The US has a long history of interference in the region, particularly in the 1980s, when it propped up repressive right-wing governments through coups, and funded paramilitary groups across Latin America that were responsible for mass killings, forced disappearances and other grave human rights abuses.

Venezuelan authorities cited Machado’s support for sanctions and US intervention when they barred her from running for office in last year’s presidential election, where she had intended to challenge Maduro. Machado has accused Venezuela’s president of stealing the July 2024 election, which was criticised by international observers.

Praising the Trump administration’s approach, Machado said the president’s actions had been “decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever.”

She insisted she would return home but did not say when. “I’m going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out. He’s going out, but the moment will be determined by when I’m finished doing the things that I came out to do,” she told reporters.

Her escape comes as tensions between Washington and Caracas have intensified sharply. The Trump administration has positioned major naval forces in the Caribbean and conducted strikes against alleged drug vessels since September. The US seized what Trump called a “very large” oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, on Wednesday.

Machado has aligned herself with right-wing hawks close to Trump who argue that Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.

The Trump administration has ordered more than 20 military strikes in recent months against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and off Latin America’s Pacific coast, killing more than 80 people.

Human rights groups, some US Democrats, and several Latin American countries have condemned the attacks as unlawful extrajudicial killings of civilians.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Machado’s two-month escape operation involved wearing a disguise and departing from a coastal fishing village on a wooden boat bound for Curacao before boarding a private aircraft to Norway.

US forces were alerted to avoid striking the vessel, the WSJ reported, as they had one with similar boats in recent months. Machado confirmed receiving assistance from Washington during her escape.

Maduro, in power since 2013 following the death of Hugo Chavez, says Trump is pushing for regime change in the country to access Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. He has pledged to resist such attempts.

A United Nations report released on Thursday accused Venezuela’s security forces of crimes against humanity over more than a decade.

Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello said Machado left the country “without drama” but provided no details.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Using U.S. forces to seize an oil tanker is incredibly unusual and marks the Trump administration’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States. The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump said “other things are happening,” but did not offer additional details, saying he would speak more about it later.

The seizure was led by the U.S. Coast Guard and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official added that the seizure was conducted under U.S. law enforcement authority.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day. Locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.

The transactions usually involve a complex network of shadowy intermediaries as sanctions scared away more established traders. Many are shell companies, registered in jurisdictions known for secrecy. The buyers deploy so-called ghost tankers that hide their location and hand off their valuable cargoes in the middle of the ocean before they reach their final destination.

During past negotiations, among the concessions the U.S. has made to Maduro was approval for oil giant Chevron Corp. to resume pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The corporation’s activities in the South American country resulted in a financial lifeline for Maduro’s government.

Maduro did not address the seizure during a speech before a ruling-party organized demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. But he told supporters that Venezuela is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”

Maduro, flanked by senior officials, said that only the ruling party can “guarantee peace, stability, and the harmonious development of Venezuela, South America and the Caribbean.”

The seizure comes a day after the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest that warplanes had come to the South American country’s airspace since the start of the administration’s pressure campaign. Trump has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered any details on location.

It was not immediately clear who owned the tanker or what national flag it was sailing under. The Coast Guard referred a request for comment to the White House.

Madhani and Toropin write for the Associated Press. AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.