US military says it seized another Venezuela-linked oil tanker

The US military said it seized another oil tanker with links to Venezuela on Tuesday, in the Caribbean Sea.

The report marks the seventh such apprehension since the start of Donald Trump’s month-long campaign to control Venezuela’s oil flows.

The US military’s Southern Command, which is overseeing nearly a dozen warships and thousands of troops in the Caribbean, said in a statement it apprehended the Motor Vessel Sagitta “without incident”.

“The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” it said in a statement.

The US president has focused his foreign policy in Latin America on Venezuela, initially aiming to push the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power. After failing to find a diplomatic solution, Trump ordered US forces to fly into the country to grab Maduro and his wife in a daring overnight raid on 3 January, bringing them to New York to face criminal charges and detaining them there.

Trump has said the US plans to control Venezuela’s oil resources indefinitely as it seeks to rebuild the country’s dilapidated oil industry in a $100bn plan that is prompting many raised eyebrows, not least from environmentalists and the US oil giants.

The vessels intercepted previously have been either under US sanctions or part of a “shadow fleet” of ships that disguise their origins to move oil from major sanctioned producers – Iran, Russia or Venezuela.

Reuters contributed reporting