US President Donald Trump said the US seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker near Venezuela’s coast has sent oil prices soaring and further escalated tensions with Caracas.
“We just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela. A large tanker, a very large tanker, the largest tanker ever, and there are actually other things going on,” Trump said Wednesday.
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The Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy” and “blatant theft.”
This comes as the United States expands its military operations in the region, carrying out airstrikes against at least 21 vessels suspected of drug trafficking since September. However, the Trump administration has not provided any evidence that these ships were carrying drugs.
Here’s what we know about the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker.
what happened?
The United States has seized and captured a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, the first operation of its kind in several years, the United States announced.
The last similar U.S. military seizure of a foreign tanker was in 2014, when U.S. Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off the coast of Cyprus as Libyan rebels tried to sell stolen oil.
The Trump administration did not identify the ship or reveal the exact location of the operation.
However, Bloomberg reported that officials described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it was anchored in Venezuela.
Shortly after announcing the latest operation Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video showing two helicopters approaching the ship and armed personnel in camouflage gear rappelling onto the deck.
“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard, with assistance from the Department of the Army, executed a warrant to seize a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Bondi said.
He added: “This oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States for several years for its involvement in an illegal oil transportation network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.”
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard, with assistance from the Department of the Army, executed a warrant to seize a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025
Experts said the boarding method shown in the video is standard practice for the U.S. military.
“The Navy, Coast Guard, and Special Forces all have special training for this type of mission, called visit, board, search, and seizure, or VBSS,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.
“This is routine, especially for the Coast Guard. The government has announced that the helicopter is similar to the Navy’s SH-60S, but it was the Coast Guard that made the seizure.”
Which ships were captured?
British maritime risk firm Vanguard has identified the crude oil carrier Skipper that was seized off the coast of Venezuela early Wednesday, Reuters reports.
MarineTraffic lists the Skipper as a very large crude oil carrier with a length of 333 m (1,093 ft) and a width of 60 m (197 ft).
The tanker was sanctioned in 2022 for allegedly helping the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force transport oil.
The captain set sail from Venezuela’s main oil terminal in José on December 4-5 after carrying around 1.8 million barrels of melee crude, a heavy, sulfur-rich blend produced in the country.
“I think we’re going to continue to have oil,” President Trump said Wednesday.
Satellite data analyzed by TankerTrackers.com shows the tanker was near Curaçao before its seizure, transferring about 200,000 barrels to the Panamanian-flagged Neptune 6, bound for Cuba.
The ship also transported Venezuelan crude oil to Asia in 2021 and 2022, according to shipping data from Venezuela’s state oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
Where did the seizure occur?
The United States announced that it had seized an oil tanker in the Caribbean.
U.S. officials said the action occurred near Venezuelan territorial waters, although they did not provide exact coordinates.
MarineTraffic data shows the ship’s tracking devices are still located in the Caribbean Sea.
Are US actions legal?
“Seizures of sanctioned items are common within a country’s territory, but unusual on the high seas,” Cancian said.
He added: “Russia has hundreds of licensed tankers sailing today, but they have not yet embarked.”
Experts say it is unclear whether the seizure was legal, in part because many details about the seizure have not been made public.
Still, if necessary, the United States could use a variety of arguments to justify seizures.
One is that the ship is considered stateless. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) requires ships to have a “nationality.”
The government of Venezuela’s neighbor Guyana said the captain was “incorrectly flying the Guyanese flag,” adding that it was not registered in the country.
If a ship flies a flag that is not registered, or refuses to fly the flag at all, countries have a “right of visit,” which allows officials to stop and inspect the ship on the high seas (essentially the high seas).
If doubts remain about the ship’s nationality after checking the ship’s documents, a more extensive investigation may be carried out.
In previous enforcement actions against sanctioned vessels, the United States has seized the oil on board rather than the ships themselves. In 2020, it seized fuel from four tankers believed to be transporting Iranian oil to Venezuela.
U.S. law also authorizes the Coast Guard, which carried out the operation, to conduct searches and seizures on the high seas to enforce U.S. law, stating that it “may conduct inquiries, inspections, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests on the high seas” to prevent and suppress violations.
But some legal experts argue that it goes too far because the United States “does not have the authority to enforce unilateral sanctions against non-Americans outside its territory,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a senior fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Rodriguez said the United States relies on maritime regulations against stateless vessels “as an entry point to justify the imposition of U.S. sanctions outside of U.S. territory.”
“As long as the United States is able to continue doing so, it could significantly increase the costs of doing business with Venezuela and deepen the country’s economic recession,” he warned in the CEPR article.
The United States does not have the authority to enforce unilateral sanctions against non-U.S. persons outside its territory. Seizing ships in international waters to enforce U.S. sanctions extraterritorially sets a dangerous precedent and is a violation of international law.
— Francisco Rodriguez (@frrodriguezc) December 10, 2025
How did Venezuela respond to this seizure?
Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “The true reason for the long-term aggression against Venezuela has finally been revealed.”
“It’s not about immigration, it’s not about drug trafficking, it’s not about democracy, it’s not about human rights. It’s always been about natural resources, oil, energy and resources that belong only to the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.
The ministry described the incident as an “act of piracy.”
The government added that it called on “all” international organizations to condemn the incident and vowed to defend sovereignty, natural resources and national dignity with “absolute determination”.
“Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to deprive the Venezuelan people of their possessions based on their historical and constitutional rights.”
What impact could there be on Venezuela’s oil exports?
Experts said the seizure could create short-term uncertainty for Venezuelan oil exports, mainly because “this was the first time[the United States]had seized a shipment of Venezuelan crude oil,” Carlos Eduardo Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera.
Pina said shippers may be hesitant, although the broader impact is limited because “the United States is allowing Chevron to continue extracting oil from Venezuela,” and noted that U.S. group Chevron holds special exemptions that allow it to produce and export crude despite broader sanctions.
Chevron, which operates a joint venture with PDVSA, said its operations in Venezuela are continuing as usual and without disruption.
The U.S. oil major, which currently handles all of Venezuela’s crude oil exports to the United States, last month increased shipments to 150,000 barrels per day (bopd) from 128,000 barrels per day in October.
But Pina warned that the measures could cause financial panic in Venezuela, saying they could “instill fear, cause a currency collapse and worsen the humanitarian crisis.”
What impact will this have on U.S.-Venezuela relations?
Diplomatically, Pina said he saw the move as a political message to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, noting the timing was “on the same day (opposition leader) Maria Colina Machado received the Nobel Prize” and calling it “a show of strength to remind[the United States of its presence in the Latin American region].”
President Maduro has long maintained that the Trump administration’s attacks on ships in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean were not actually aimed at interfering with drug trafficking, but were part of a plan to bring about regime change in Venezuela. President Trump has authorized CIA operations in Venezuela and has given conflicting messages about whether he would consider invading the territory.
Analysts see the move as part of a broader strategy to put pressure on Maduro’s government.
“This is certainly an escalation aimed at putting more pressure on the Maduro regime, causing rifts within the regime or convincing the Maduro regime to leave,” Cancian said.
“This is part of a series of U.S. actions, including sending Ford to the Caribbean, authorizing the CIA to counter the Maduro regime, and conducting flybys by bombers and, most recently, F-18s.”
Cancian added that the broader implications of the operation will depend on what happens next.
“The objective also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he said. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Venezuela is so dependent on oil revenue that it will not be able to withstand such a blockade for long.”
