Donald Trump has said the US will keep or sell the crude oil contained on tankers it has seized off the coast of Venezuela, as well as the vessels themselves.
The US president’s comments came as Washington continues to pressure the South American country’s leader Nicolás Maduro to stand down.
Speaking to reporters in Florida on Monday, Trump said of the oil “we’re going to keep it”, adding: “Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it. Maybe we’ll use it in the Strategic Reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”
The Trump administration has accused Venezuela of using oil revenues to fund drug-related crime, while Caracas has condemned the seizures as “piracy”.
The US military has seized two oil tankers this month, including one on Saturday.
Trump issued his latest warning as the US Coast Guard continued to pursue a third oil tanker, which authorities described as part of a Venezuelan “dark fleet” used to evade US sanctions.
“It’s moving along, and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said.
Separately on Monday, the US military said it carried out a strike on what it said was a suspected trafficking vessel in international waters in the eastern Pacific. US Southern Command said one person was killed.
For the second time in less than 24 hrs…
Gee, who the fuck could have predicted that was coming? Russia and China pledge support for Venezuela as Trump ratchets up pressure on Maduro
And by “we” will keep or sell, I assume he means the royal We, as in Chevron, since he’s ensured they are currently the only company allowed to legally export oil from Venezuela.
Chevron is, I think, the largest single producer of oil and gas in Venezuela at this time. They apparently have what we call a specific license from the Department of Treasury to continue operations there, whereas a lot of other companies don’t have that privilege. There used to be a general license that enabled a lot of companies to operate there. Those were revoked by the Trump administration during summertime. And again, those specific licenses aren’t public, so we don’t know the details. But we can surmise that Chevron does have one of those undisclosed specific licenses because we see in the numbers production from Chevron, and we see barrels flowing each week to the United States.
This is all on the heels of the U.S. placing “sanctions” on the Russian oil company, LukOil, and the rejection of Chevron’s bid to buy those assets.
Luckily, to avoid any potential fuckery and corruption regarding the assets, Saudi Arabia stepped in instead. Saudi Arabia Moves to Take Control of LUKOIL’s $22 Billion Global Assets
And even though Chevron didn’t get to “buy” those assets (at least not directly) they get to take control of all of the shadow tankers that were headed to Russia, China, and Iran. Russia had been using these ghost tankers to sneak around EU sanctions, but then started marking their tankers with Russian flags… for some reason.
Is it a challenge? Or is it like writing your name on something because you know your friends will be raiding the fridge, and you want to mark what belongs to you?