<\/p>\n
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0parliament on Tuesday approved a measure that criminalizes a broad range of activities that can hinder navigation and commerce in the South American country, such as\u00a0the seizure of oil tankers.<\/p>\n
The bill \u2014 introduced, debated and approved within two days in the National Assembly \u2014 follows this month’s seizures by U.S. forces of two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in international waters. The seizures are the latest strategy in U.S. President Donald Trump’s\u00a0four-month pressure campaign\u00a0on Venezuela’s leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n
The tankers are part of what the Trump administration has said is a fleet Venezuela uses to evade U.S. economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
The unicameral assembly, which is controlled by Venezuela’s ruling party, did not publish drafts on Tuesday nor the final version of the measure. But as read on the floor, the bill calls for fines and prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone who promotes, requests, supports, finances or participates in \u201cacts of piracy, blockades or other international illegal acts\u201d against commercial entities operating with the South American country.<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s political opposition, including Nobel Peace laureate\u00a0Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, has expressed support for Trump’s Venezuela policy, including the seizure of tankers. Machado and Trump have both repeatedly said that Maduro’s days in power are numbered.<\/p>\n
The bill, which now awaits Maduro\u2019s signature, also instructs the executive branch to come up with \u201cincentives and mechanisms for economic, commercial and other protections\u201d for national or foreign entities doing business with Venezuela in the event of piracy activities, a maritime blockade or other unlawful acts.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday\u00a0seized a Panama-flagged vessel\u00a0called Centuries that officials said was part of the fleet moving sanctioned cargo. With assistance from the U.S. Navy, it\u00a0seized a rogue tanker called Skipper\u00a0on Dec. 10. That ship was registered in Panama.<\/p>\n
Trump,\u00a0after that first seizure, said the U.S. would carry out a \u201cblockade\u201d of Venezuela. He later demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of the\u00a0blockade against sanctioned oil tankers traveling\u00a0to or from the South American country.<\/p>\n
At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council called by Venezuela, U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz on Tuesday stressed that sanctioned oil tankers \u201coperate as the primary economic lifeline for Maduro and his illegitimate regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaduro\u2019s ability to sell Venezuela\u2019s oil enables his fraudulent claim to power and his narco-terrorist activities,\u201d Waltz said. \u201cThe United States will impose and enforce sanctions to the maximum extent to deprive Maduro of the resources he uses to fund Cartel de los Soles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maduro was indicted in 2020 on narcoterrorism charges in the U.S. and accused of leading the Cartel de los Soles, which\u00a0the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization last month. But the entity is not a cartel per se.<\/p>\n
Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running. As corruption expanded nationwide, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday’s meeting, Venezuela\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada accused the U.S. of acting \u201coutside international law\u201d and its own domestic laws, by demanding that Venezuelans vacate the country and hand it over to the Trump administration, including all its oil fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat right does the United States government have to appropriate, to date, almost 4 million barrels of Venezuelan oil?\u201d Moncada asked, referring to the cargo of the two seized tankers. \u201cThis alleged naval blockade is essentially a military act aimed at laying siege to the Venezuelan nation, degrading its economic and military apparatus, weakening its social and political cohesion, and causing internal chaos to facilitate aggression by external forces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many countries expressed concern about violations of international maritime law and adhering to the United Nations Charter, which requires all 193 member nations to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of every other country. The United States\u2019 actions were supported by a few countries, including Panama and Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) \u2014\u00a0Venezuela\u2019s\u00a0parliament on Tuesday approved a measure that criminalizes a broad range of activities that can hinder navigation and commerce in the South American country, such as\u00a0the seizure of oil tankers. The bill \u2014 introduced, debated and approved within two days in the National Assembly \u2014 follows this month’s seizures by U.S. forces<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3945,3947,1628,2380,2851,607,3946,3191,174,2199],"class_list":{"0":"post-13591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-criminalize","9":"tag-maduro","10":"tag-oil","11":"tag-pressure","12":"tag-puts","13":"tag-seeks","14":"tag-seizures","15":"tag-tanker","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-venezuela"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13591","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=13591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}