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President Trump confirmed on December 10, 2025, that U.S. forces have seized a very large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, calling it the largest tanker ever taken in such an action. The announcement signals a dramatic escalation in Washington’s effort to squeeze Nicolás Maduro’s illegitimate regime and choke off illicit revenue streams.
U.S. officials say the operation was led by the Coast Guard with Navy support and came amid the biggest American military buildup in the region in decades, including carriers, fighter jets, and a large troop presence. That show of force underscores that this administration is willing to pair legal enforcement with unmistakable military deterrence.
This seizure is the latest move in a months-long pressure campaign that has included strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels and other measures aimed at crippling the criminal networks propping up Maduro. Critics will howl about escalation, but the reality is that disorder and narcoterrorism have been allowed to metastasize under softer policies; firmness is the only credible alternative.
Remember what’s at stake: Venezuela still sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and its energy exports have funded tyranny and empowered hostile actors. Disrupting those revenue flows is not greed, it’s national security—cutting off the cash that props up a corrupt, brutal regime and its foreign backers.
For too long American policy toward Latin America swung between naïveté and weak appeasement, leaving our interests exposed and our southern neighborhood insecure. This administration is finally treating illicit oil trade and narcotrafficking as the strategic problems they are, pushing back where previous leaders would have looked the other way and hoped for the best.
Legal questions will be raised, and they should be—so long as the Justice Department and Congress insist on transparency and a clear legal basis for action. Officials have described the operation as a judicial enforcement action against a stateless vessel, not a rogue military grab, and that distinction matters as we defend the rule of law while protecting American security.
Patriots who want a safe, sovereign America should welcome a government that acts rather than retreads the tired playbook of surrender to kleptocrats. If this boldness deters narcoterrorists, protects energy interests, and hastens the downfall of Maduro’s criminal enterprise, then bold it should be—because the world respects strength, and liberty depends on it.
