Venezuela condemns ‘warmongering threats’ as Trump orders oil blockade
Trump in his Truth Social message didn’t have any detail on how a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers might be enforced, or if he would direct the coast guard to seize vessels like he did last week.
His administration has moved thousands of troops and nearly a dozen warships – including the world’s largest aircraft carrier – to the sea north of Venezuela in the past couple of weeks.
It’s clear the move targeting oil, Venezuela’s main source of income, is aimed at further squeezing Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Venezuela affirmed its sovereignty over all natural resources and its right to free navigation and trade in the Caribbean Sea despite “warmongering threats”, the government said in a statement on Tuesday. It condemned Trump’s “irrational military blockade” order as a “grotesque threat” aimed at “stealing” the country’s wealth.
Key events
Donald Trump’s White House was shaken yesterday after Vanity Fair published a piece based on nearly a dozen interviews with chief of staff Susie Wiles in which she holds forth in a very candid fashion about the administration’s inner workings. Here’s more on what she said, and why it caused such a stir:
The president’s chief of staff Susie Wiles has given her own, unvarnished thoughts about Donald Trump’s administration, in a series of interviews published by Vanity Fair magazine, revealing details and opinions that presidential aides usually save for memoirs long after they have left power.
From calling out attorney general Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, to criticising Elon Musk over the dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Wiles has offered an unusually candid look inside the White House, after maintaining a low profile for much of Trump’s term.
In a series of 11 interviews with author Chris Whipple conducted over Trump’s first year back in office, Wiles, the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, described the teetotal president as having “an alcoholic’s personality” and an eye for vengeance against perceived enemies.
After the publication of the piece on Tuesday, Wiles called the Vanity Fair story “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest president, White House staff, and cabinet in history,” saying it omitted important context and selectively quoted her to create a negative narrative. A number of cabinet officials and other aides rushed to her defence – but Wiles notably has not denied any details or quotes.
Donald Trump will today travel to Dover, Delaware to witness the arrival of two US soldiers killed over the weekend in Syria, according to his White House schedule.
This evening at 9pm, the president will make an address to the nation. The White House has not yet specified what that will be about, but chances are it is aimed at reversing the slump in his approval ratings.
There will, in fact, be two war powers resolutions concerning US actions towards Venezuela before the House today.
The chamber is also expected to vote on a measure proposed by Greg Meeks, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, which requires Trump to end hostilities against “presidentially designated terrorist organizations in the Western Hemisphere”, rather than Venezuela specifically.
This one has 40 cosponsors, but all are Democrats.
House to vote on resolution preventing conflict with Venezuela
We will get a sense later in the day on whether the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has any misgivings about Donald Trump’s strategy towards Venezuela, when a war powers resolution intended to halt his escalation against the country comes up for a vote.
Proposed by Democrat James McGovern, the resolution would require the president to remove troops from the country’s vicinity. It has 39 Democratic co-sponsors, and, perhaps crucially, three Republicans: Don Bacon of Nebraska, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. The latter two are not on good terms with the president.
Votes are expected at 5.30pm at the latest, and we will find out if it has the support to pass. When defense secretary Pete Hegseth and secretary of state Marco Rubio briefed lawmakers on the Venezuela strategy yesterday, many Republicans said they agreed with the administration’s actions. Here’s more on that:
To take it back to domestic politics for a bit, a Maga loyalist US attorney is expanding an investigation of ex-FBI and intelligence officials who angered Trump with their inquiry into claims Russia helped the US president win in 2016.
This is despite the US justice department suffering stinging recent court rejections of indictments of two foes of the US president.
Former prosecutors and legal experts call the Miami-based inquiry, which has issued some two dozen subpoenas so far, a “fishing expedition”.
The investigation’s apparent focus is to identify ways to criminally charge ex-FBI and intelligence officials who have already been investigated and effectively exonerated by two special counsels and a Republican-led Senate panel, which mounted exhaustive inquiries into Russia’s efforts to boost Trump in 2016.
Led by Jason Reding Quiñones, who is close to attorney general Pam Bondi and other key Maga allies, the inquiry accelerated with a flurry of subpoenas in November and new prosecutors to expedite what has been dubbed a “grand conspiracy” investigation.
Oil prices up 2% after Trump blockade order
The markets are closely watching how such a blockade would actually be imposed.
The price of US crude jumped more than 2% after Trump’s announcement – Brent was up $1.41, or 2.4%, at $60.33 a barrel at 10:18 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.42, or 2.6%, to $56.69 a barrel.
Oil prices have been at near five-year lows due to progress on Ukraine peace talks; however, the risk to the Venezuelan supply is now driving it up again.
“Venezuelan oil production accounts for around 1% of global output, but supplies are concentrated among a small group of buyers, mainly Chinese teapot refiners, the U.S., and Cuba,” Muyu Xu, senior oil analyst at Kpler told the Associated Press.
Venezuela condemns ‘warmongering threats’ as Trump orders oil blockade
Trump in his Truth Social message didn’t have any detail on how a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers might be enforced, or if he would direct the coast guard to seize vessels like he did last week.
His administration has moved thousands of troops and nearly a dozen warships – including the world’s largest aircraft carrier – to the sea north of Venezuela in the past couple of weeks.
It’s clear the move targeting oil, Venezuela’s main source of income, is aimed at further squeezing Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Venezuela affirmed its sovereignty over all natural resources and its right to free navigation and trade in the Caribbean Sea despite “warmongering threats”, the government said in a statement on Tuesday. It condemned Trump’s “irrational military blockade” order as a “grotesque threat” aimed at “stealing” the country’s wealth.
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog, I’m Frances Mao taking you through the next few hours.
The immediate focus is on Venezuela after Donald Trump on Tuesday night ordered a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned oil tankers to and from the country.
Venezuela is home to the world’s largest identified oil reserves, and its economy is reliant on oil. It has accused Washington of trying to steal its resources through “warmongering threats”.
The blockade announcement comes after US officials seized a tanker off the coast last week, the latest escalation in weeks of US naval aggression in the Caribbean.
Trump last night wrote that Venezuela was now “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America”. He added it would “only get bigger” and “be like nothing they have ever seen before”.
