Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of oil tankers subject to US sanctions heading to or from Venezuela. He accused Maduro’s government of using “stolen” oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”.

Referring to the US deployment to the region of a dozen warships and more than 14,000 troops, Trump wrote that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.

Oil prices jumped in the wake of Trump’s blockade order, which came days after US forces had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Since September, the US military has killed around 100 people in more than two dozen strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

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Trump has also threatened to strike drug-related targets inside Venezuela. Caracas denounced his “warmongering threats” and called on oil workers to organise a worldwide protest “against the piracy of those who believe they have a licence to plunder the world’s resources”.

Drug blockades

Trump is tightening the screws on Caracas, said The Wall Street Journal – and not before time. While Maduro is accusing the US of piracy, he’s the one who “stole Venezuelan democracy” by refusing to cede power after losing the 2024 presidential election. More than eight million Venezuelans have fled his police state. Trump isn’t concerned about Maduro’s authoritarianism, said The Guardian. Nor is this about tackling drug cartels: Venezuela isn’t a big supplier of drugs to the US. Trump is driven mainly by the desire to stem refugee flows and get rid of the socialist Maduro, a long-term target.

The US blockade carries some risks, said The Washington Post. It could provoke a marine confrontation that drags the US into a land war in South America. And by reducing the regime’s main source of revenue, it could exacerbate a humanitarian crisis. Still, it’s a more “legally defensible” strategy than the US air strikes on alleged drug smugglers. Given that about 80% of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market, and that most tankers stopping there are sanctioned, Trump “can argue that he’s merely stepping up enforcement”. His first-term effort to oust Maduro failed because “his attention drifted”. Will he stay the course this time?

Squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade

Maduro is vulnerable, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. Venezuela has the world’s largest-known oil reserves and used to be one of the region’s richest countries. But more than 25 years of hard-left rule, initially under Hugo Chávez and then his protégé Maduro, have driven it to ruin. Its poverty rate is now about 80%. People talk about the danger of civil war if Maduro is ousted, but this isn’t a divided country. Nobel Prize-winner María Corina Machado would have coasted to victory had she not been barred from standing in last year’s election. In a recent poll, nine out of 10 Venezuelans said they believed that the man who won that vote by a landslide – Machado’s chosen candidate, Edmundo Gonzáles – is their rightful president.

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Trump is hoping that his “drip-drip pressure campaign” can bring about a coup without the need for direct US military force, said Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner. US navy jets are wearing down Venezuelan defence units by forcing them to remain at a state of high readiness, and CIA assets inside the country are no doubt encouraging top officials to move against Maduro. It’s the right approach. If Maduro is ousted, there’s a good chance that there will be an insurgency involving narco-traffickers and at least some unreconciled elements of the old regime. Given Venezuela’s “abundance of deep jungles and sprawling favelas”, the US doesn’t want to get entangled in any counter-insurgency campaign.

Trump is squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade, said Keith Johnson in Foreign Policy. Activity in its ports has sharply reduced and multiple inbound tankers have turned around mid-voyage in recent days. Some oil is still flowing, said a report in the Financial Times. US-based Chevron, which accounts for about a quarter of Venezuela’s oil production, still has a licence to sell oil; tankers not included in the US’ expanding list of sanctioned vessels can still ply their trade. If the US keeps tightening the noose, though, it will create enormous difficulties for Maduro’s regime. “But given that the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ started by Chávez has survived for a quarter of a century, few are willing to bet on the Venezuelan regime collapsing” without direct US military action.

Lack of storage capacity

Trump says the US military build-up will continue until Caracas returns “all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us”. Under Chávez, Venezuela expropriated assets belonging to US oil companies. Trump hasn’t given any further details about how the US blockade on sanctioned tankers will be enforced.

Until recently Venezuela produced about 0.8% of global crude oil output, exporting some 900,000 barrels a day. Most of this ended up in China. Last week, Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, said that crude exports were “continuing as normal”, but experts believe it will soon have to halt production owing to a lack of storage capacity.