"We will find you, and we will stop you." Hours after Trump threatened Venezuela with the "largest Armada ever assembled," the Coast Guard seized its second sanctioned oil tanker in two weeks. Maduro's response: "Venezuela will never be a colony." This is how naval blockades begin.
In the pre-dawn darkness of Saturday morning, a U.S. Coast Guard tactical team—backed by Department of Defense support—intercepted a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in international waters of the Caribbean Sea.
The seizure, confirmed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, marks the second time in less than two weeks that the United States has physically boarded and captured a vessel involved in what officials call "illicit oil operations" tied to the Venezuelan regime of President Nicolas Maduro.
"The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region," Noem declared on social media. "We will find you, and we will stop you."
The timing is no coincidence. Just days earlier, President Donald Trump threatened to impose a complete blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of Venezuela, boasting that the country is "completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America."
"It will only get bigger," Trump warned, "and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before."
Maduro fired back defiantly: "Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never."
What's unfolding in the Caribbean is more than sanctions enforcement or anti-narcotics operations. It's the beginning of what could become a full-scale naval blockade—an aggressive act of economic warfare that historically precedes military conflict.
The Second Seizure in Two Weeks
Saturday's interdiction follows a nearly identical operation on December 10, when an elite Coast Guard tactical team—with U.S. Navy helicopter support—boarded and seized The Skipper, an oil tanker sanctioned for participating in illicit Venezuelan oil operations.
The Coast Guard hasn't released the name of Saturday's captured vessel, but Noem confirmed it had "last made port in Venezuela" and was operating in international waters of the Caribbean when intercepted.
The pattern is clear: the United States is actively hunting sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers in international waters, boarding them with military-backed tactical teams, and physically seizing the vessels.
This isn't passive sanctions enforcement where financial institutions are pressured to freeze assets. This is active interdiction—warships stopping commercial vessels on the high seas, armed boarding parties taking control of foreign-flagged ships, and the seizure of millions of dollars worth of oil and maritime assets.
Under international law, such actions can be justified under certain circumstances—including enforcement of U.N. Security Council sanctions, interdiction of vessels engaged in piracy or terrorism, or when authorized by the flag state. But they also represent a significant escalation in how the United States enforces its economic pressure campaigns.
Venezuela certainly sees it as an act of aggression, and Maduro's defiant response suggests he's preparing his domestic audience for a prolonged confrontation.
Trump's Blockade Threat: "The Largest Armada Ever"
President Trump's rhetoric this week dramatically raised the stakes.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump announced that Venezuela is "completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America"—a claim that, while characteristically hyperbolic, signals a major shift in U.S. policy toward the Maduro regime.
"It will only get bigger," Trump continued, "and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before."
A naval blockade—if that's what Trump is threatening—would represent one of the most aggressive uses of American military power in the Western Hemisphere in decades. Blockades are acts of war under international law, though they can be implemented as "pacific blockades" or "quarantines" to avoid that legal designation.
The most famous modern example is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval "quarantine" (carefully avoiding the word "blockade") to prevent Soviet ships from delivering nuclear missiles to Cuba. That crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war before the Soviets backed down.
Trump's threatened blockade of Venezuela wouldn't involve nuclear weapons, but it would involve stopping and searching every vessel attempting to trade with Venezuela—including ships from countries that don't recognize U.S. sanctions, like China, Russia, and Iran.
The legal and diplomatic complications are enormous. The military risks are significant. And the potential for escalation is very real.
Maduro's Defiant Response
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro isn't backing down.
"Venezuela would continue to trade oil," Maduro declared in response to Trump's threats, framing the confrontation as an attempted American colonization that will "never" succeed.
"Trump's 'intention' is regime change," Maduro said. "This will just not happen, never, never, never -- Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never."
The rhetoric is designed for domestic consumption, rallying Venezuelans around nationalism and anti-American sentiment. Historically, external threats have helped authoritarian leaders consolidate power by framing internal opposition as traitorous collaboration with foreign enemies.
But Maduro's defiance also reflects genuine constraints on what the United States can achieve through economic pressure alone. Venezuela has survived years of crippling sanctions by finding alternative trading partners—particularly China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba—who are willing to ignore or circumvent U.S. restrictions.
A naval blockade would aim to close those escape routes by physically preventing ships from reaching Venezuelan ports, regardless of what flag they fly or which country owns them. That's where things get complicated and potentially dangerous.
The Oil That Funds "Narco Terrorism"
Secretary Noem's justification for the seizures focuses on oil revenues funding "narco terrorism in the region."
This framing links Venezuela's oil exports to drug trafficking and terrorism—accusations the United States has leveled against the Maduro regime for years. U.S. officials claim that senior Venezuelan government and military officials are complicit in narcotics trafficking, taking bribes to allow Colombian cocaine to transit through Venezuela on its way to the United States and Europe.
The Trump administration has indicted Venezuelan officials on drug trafficking charges and offered multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to their capture. The most dramatic example was the 2020 indictment of Maduro himself on narco-terrorism charges—an unprecedented move against a sitting head of state.
By seizing oil tankers and characterizing oil revenues as funding for drug trafficking, the United States is attempting to justify aggressive enforcement actions that might otherwise be viewed as violations of freedom of navigation or economic warfare.
The legal basis is murky. International waters are, by definition, not subject to any single nation's jurisdiction. The United States can interdict vessels suspected of drug trafficking under various international agreements. But stopping oil tankers for sanctions violations is a different matter—one that tests the boundaries of international law and could trigger diplomatic or military responses from countries whose ships are seized.