\n<\/p>\n
U.S. forces seized<\/span> an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, two government sources familiar with the matter told The Intercept. President Donald Trump called the boat the \u201clargest one ever seized<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The capture comes after three months of U.S. military attacks on boats in the region, which have killed at least 87 civilians<\/a>.<\/p>\n The U.S. government has not yet explained its justification for capturing the Venezuelan vessel.<\/p>\n The two government sources said the operation was led by the U.S. Coast Guard. \u201cWe would refer you to the White House for questions,\u201d Lt. Krystal Wolfe, a Coast Guard spokesperson, told The Intercept in response to questions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a comment,\u201d said a Pentagon spokeswoman, who also referred questions to the White House.<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears they\u2019re now aiming to further tighten the economic noose, regardless of its impact on civilians, in pursuit of their regime change goal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n While the U.S. once bought <\/a>much of Venezuela\u2019s oil<\/a>, that trade was halted in 2019 when the first Trump administration imposed sanctions <\/a>on the country\u2019s state-owned oil company. While shipments to the United States resumed in 2023<\/a>, most of Venezuela\u2019s oil is now exported to China<\/a>. The U.S. has also imposed financial sanctions<\/a> on the Venezuelan government.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress and the international community should consider this as an illegal act of war, in the legal sense as well as for the surge in poverty and violence it could cause,\u201d Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy, told The Intercept. \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s indiscriminate sanctions have increased hunger across the population but have failed to topple the government. It appears they\u2019re now aiming to further tighten the economic noose, regardless of its impact on civilians, in pursuit of their regime change goal.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The capture comes as the Pentagon has built up a force<\/a> of more than 15,000 troops in the Caribbean since the summer \u2014 the largest naval flotilla in the region since the Cold War. That contingent now includes 5,000 sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy\u2019s newest and most powerful aircraft carrier, which has more than 75 attack, surveillance, and support aircraft.<\/p>\n As part of a campaign of airstrikes on boats, the Trump administration has secretly declared<\/a> that it is engaged in a \u201cnon-international armed conflict\u201d with 24 cartels, gangs, and armed groups including C\u00e1rtel de los Soles, which the U.S. claims is \u201cheaded by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals,\u201d despite little evidence that such a group exists<\/a>. Experts and insiders see this as part of a plan for regime change<\/a> in Venezuela that stretches back <\/a>to Trump\u2019s first term<\/a>. Maduro, the president of Venezuela, denies that he heads a cartel.<\/p>\n Since the attacks began, experts in the laws of war and members of Congress, from both parties<\/a>, have said the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings <\/a>because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even suspected criminals \u2014 who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.<\/p>\n Trump has pursued an abrasive and interventionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere during his second term. \u201c[W]e will assert and enforce a \u2018Trump Corollary\u2019 to the Monroe Doctrine,\u201d reads the recently released U.S. National Security Strategy. It harkens back to President Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s turn-of-the-20th-century \u201cBig Stick<\/a>\u201d corollary<\/a> to the Monroe Doctrine.<\/p>\n President James Monroe\u2019s 1823 announcement warned the nations of Europe that the United States would not permit the establishment of new colonies in the Americas. Roosevelt\u2019s more muscular decree held that Washington had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of countries across the Americas. In the first quarter of the 20th century, that Roosevelt corollary would be used to justify U.S. occupations of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti<\/a>, Honduras, and Nicaragua<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s been called the \u201cDonroe Doctrine<\/a>\u201d began to take shape with threats to seize the Panama Canal, acquire Greenland, and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The Trump administration also claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua<\/a> had invaded<\/a> the United States, allowing the government to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act <\/a>to fast-track deportation of people it says belong to the gang. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually blocked the government from using the war-time law. \u201cWe conclude that the findings do not support that an invasion or a predatory incursion has occurred,\u201d wrote<\/a> Judge Leslie Southwick.<\/p>\n More recently, Trump even claimed that U.S. troops engaged in combat with members of the gang<\/a> on the streets of Washington, D.C., during the summer or early fall \u2014 an apparent fiction that the White House press office refuses to address.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration claims that Tren de Aragua is acting as \u201ca de facto arm of<\/a>\u201d Maduro\u2019s government, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined<\/a> earlier this year that the \u201cMaduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n