<\/p>\n
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea as the Trump administration appeared to be\u00a0intensifying its targeting of such vessels\u00a0connected to the\u00a0Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n
The pursuit of the tanker, which was confirmed by a U.S. official briefed on the operation, comes after the U.S. administration announced Saturday it had seized a tanker for the second time in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the ongoing operation and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Sunday’s pursuit involved \u201ca sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela\u2019s illegal sanctions evasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The official said the vessel was flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the U.S. Coast Guard, deferred questions about the operation to the White House, which did not offer comment on the operation.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s predawn seizure\u00a0of a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries targeted what the White House described as a \u201cfalsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet to traffic stolen oil.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard, with assistance from the Navy,\u00a0seized a sanctioned tanker called Skipper\u00a0on Dec. 10, another\u00a0part of the shadow fleet of tankers\u00a0that the U.S. says operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo. It was not even flying a nation\u2019s flag when it was seized by the Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump,\u00a0after that first seizure, said that the U.S. would carry out a \u201cblockade\u201d of Venezuela. It all comes as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Venezuelan\u00a0President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n
This past week Trump demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a\u00a0\u201cblockade\u201d against oil tankers traveling\u00a0to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.<\/p>\n
Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a\u00a0pressure campaign\u00a0against Maduro, suggesting the Republican administration\u2019s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers already are\u00a0diverting away from Venezuela.<\/p>\n
U.S. oil companies dominated\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s petroleum industry\u00a0until the country\u2019s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014, an international arbitration panel ordered the country\u2019s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n
Maduro said in a message Sunday on Telegram that Venezuela has spent months \u201cdenouncing, challenging and defeating a campaign of aggression that goes from psychological terrorism to corsairs attacking oil tankers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe are ready to accelerate the pace of our deep revolution!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea as the Trump administration appeared to be\u00a0intensifying its targeting of such vessels\u00a0connected to the\u00a0Venezuelan government. The pursuit of the tanker, which was confirmed by a U.S. official briefed on the operation, comes after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[941,1864,2241,1319,3786,3667,3787,3191,2199],"class_list":["post-13236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-coast","tag-guard","tag-helping","tag-official","tag-pursuing","tag-sanctions","tag-skirt","tag-tanker","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}