Don’t know where to put this. But this is another act of war/piracy.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/10/us-seizes-venezuelan-oil-tanker-00685289
Nixon Trump: Well, when the president America does it … that means that it is not illegal.
Almost certainly because he does not want folks talking about the Epstein files, and his relationship to him.
Some one MUST have a clean copy of those files. I bet Putin does. Release them! How much is Trump paying you to keep them hidden?
He’s now the Pirate King:
He’s above the law, and has the SCOTUS to back him up. They all need impeached and imprisoned. We cannot allow this to continue.
Wait, seized? Without sinking it? They have the capability to do that?
Who knew?
Moderating:
This thread is in an awkward place between breaking news, P&E speculation, and of course some traditional griping. After review with the OP, I’m leaving it in P&E for the moment, with the intent that discussion be on the details, legality or lack thereof, and speculation on the causes such as @enipla’s follow up comment:
If this gets too heated, due to the severity of the incident and possibilities of escalation, we may be headed Pit-ward.
I don’t know how you would seize an oil tanker without boarding. It takes ~ miles to stop one when the captain is in control.
Trump says it was done by the US Coast Guard. The tanker was on it’s way to Cuba. WTF?
I assume one could seize it by simply giving it radio instructions, “This is the US Navy, comply or else,” just like how fighter jets can order an airliner to follow them to an airport, etc.
A really, really big net. I have know idea what’s going on here.
Seized control via helicopter.
On whose order? To what end?
I’m sure. But would the Navy or Coast Guard follow yet another illegal order? I know people in the Navy, and the Guard. I hope that I’m right that they wouldn’t do it.
He sinks a few more ships, it’s true, than a well-bred monarch ought to do…
The administration claim is something like this: this particular ship has for years been under sanction by the US for doing some kind of nefarious trading in oil of which the US does not approve. Such as helping Venezuela sell its oil (which the US has sanctioned) to China. The apparent purpose appears to be to put a dent in or even prevent that trade (and also to steal the oil). Also the ship had its tracking turned off, so clearly it is criminal.
Pretty much this. The US is being run by a criminal organization now.
According to the NYT (I don’t have a gift link handy but you can google NYT oil tanker and see some of the reporting), there are some important factors that make this not as scary. Evidently (please correct me if I’m understanding anything wrong),
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This is not a Venezuelan ship, it’s a rogue ship that operates under false flags, has faked its location data before, and is used to bypass sanctions on countries like Iran. Basically, it’s a smuggling vessel.
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A warrant was issued 2 weeks ago by a federal judge (details unavailable, however)
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The investigation into this particular ship appears to have started under the Biden DOJ.
Now, is seizing it now related to the fact that it had Venezuelan oil on it? Almost certainly. But I suspect that under normal circumstances this would be a small article on page 5 of the World News section and not what it is now.
Here’s an article from the NYT about the ship (gift link):
Here’s a New York Times article about a Biden administration ship seizure that is a little different:
U.S. Seized Iranian Oil Over Smuggling Incident That Escalated Tensions in Gulf
The difference is Iranian oil, not Venezuelan. The administration does claim that the ship just seized was previously used to transport Iranian oil.
I’d have to carefully review all the oil tanker seizures from past administrations before saying the Trump administration was, just in this one seizure, worse.
As noted in other threads, seizure is, even if bad, much less bad than sinking. Perhaps even the Trump administration would hesitate to risk an environment catastrophe by sinking a full oil tanker.
Here’s an example where we gave back the oil:
That’s the problem with a policy of blatantly committing war crimes; even when you do something legitimate, people are going to assume you’re just engaging in more crimes.
Maybe the administration shouldn’t do those bad things in the first place? I know, crazy suggestion.
I don’t have a per se problem with doing something about the shadow fleet and sanctions busting. Too often these things have no teeth.
I do have a problem with this Venezuela obsession (it seems like we’ve been up in arms ever since Chavez called Bush a devil; are we really that thin skinned?). I also have a problem with the fact that we’re happy to ignore this when it benefits Russia.