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United States President Donald Trump has said that the US has seized a sanctioned oil tanker close to the coast of Venezuela, in a move that has caused oil prices to spike and further escalates tensions with Caracas.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” Trump said on Wednesday.
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list of 1 itemend of listThe Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy”, and “blatant theft”.
This comes as the US expands its military operations in the region, where it has been carrying out air strikes on at least 21 suspected drug-trafficking vessels since September. The Trump administration has provided no evidence that these boats were carrying drugs, however.
Here is what we know about the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker:
What happened?
The US said it intercepted and seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking the first operation of its kind in years.
The last comparable US military seizure of a foreign tanker occurred in 2014, when US Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off Cyprus as Libyan rebels attempted to sell stolen crude oil.
The Trump administration did not identify the vessel or disclose the precise location of the operation.
However, Bloomberg reported that officials had described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it had been docked in Venezuela.
Soon after announcing the latest operation on Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video showing two helicopters approaching a vessel and armed personnel in camouflage rappelling onto its deck.
“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Bondi said.
She added that “for multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil-shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025
Experts said the method of boarding demonstrated in the video is standard practice for US forces.
“The Navy, Coast Guard and special forces all have special training for this kind of mission, called visit, board, search, and seizure – or VBSS,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.
“It is routine, especially for the Coast Guard. The government said it was a Coast Guard force doing the seizure, though the helicopter looks like a Navy SH-60S.”
Which vessel was seized?
According to a Reuters report, British maritime risk firm Vanguard identified the crude carrier Skipper as the vessel seized early Wednesday off Venezuela’s coast.
MarineTraffic lists the Skipper as a very large crude carrier measuring 333m (1,093 feet) in length and 60m (197 feet) in width.
The tanker was sanctioned in 2022 for allegedly helping to transport oil for the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Iran’s Quds Force.
The Skipper departed Venezuela’s main oil terminal at Jose between December 4 and 5 after loading about 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude, a heavy, high-sulphur blend produced in Venezuela.
“I assume we’re going to keep the oil,” President Trump said on Wednesday.
Before the seizure, the tanker had transferred roughly 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, which was headed for Cuba, according to satellite data analysed by TankerTrackers.com.
According to shipping data from Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the vessel also transported Venezuelan crude to Asia in 2021 and 2022.
Where did the seizure take place?
The US said it seized the oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.
US officials have said the action occurred near Venezuelan territorial waters, though they have not provided precise coordinates.
MarineTraffic data shows the vessel’s tracker still located in the Caribbean.
Is the US action legal?
Cancian noted that “seizing sanctioned items is common inside a country’s own territory. It is unusual in international waters”.
He added: “Russia has hundreds of sanctioned tankers sailing today, but they have not been boarded.”
Experts say it is unclear whether the seizure was legal, partly because many details about it have not been made public.
Still, the US could make use of various arguments to justify the seizure if needs be.
One is that the boat is regarded as stateless. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ships need “a nationality”.
The government of Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, said the Skipper was “falsely flying the Guyana flag”, adding that it is not registered in the country.
If a vessel flies a flag it is not registered under, or refuses to show any flag at all, states have the “right of visit”, allowing their officials to stop and inspect the ship on the high seas – essentially meaning international waters.
If doubts about a ship’s nationality remain after checking its documents, a more extensive search can follow.
In previous enforcement actions against sanctioned ships, the US has seized not the ship itself but the oil on board. In 2020, it confiscated fuel from four tankers allegedly carrying Iranian oil to Venezuela.
US law also allows the Coast Guard, which carried out this operation, to conduct searches and seizures on the high seas in order to enforce US laws, stating that it “may make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas” to prevent and suppress violations.
But some legal experts argue that the US has overstepped, as it “has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory”, according to Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
Rodriguez said the US is relying on maritime rules for stateless vessels “as an entryway to justify enforcing US sanctions outside of US territory”.
“To the extent that the US is able to continue to do so, it could significantly increase the cost of doing business with Venezuela and precipitate a deepening of the country’s economic recession,” he warned in a CEPR article.
The US has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory. The seizure of ships in international waters to extraterritorially enforce US sanctions is a dangerous precedent and a violation of international law.
— Francisco Rodríguez (@frrodriguezc) December 10, 2025
How has Venezuela responded to the seizure?
Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry stated that “the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been exposed”.
“It is not migration, it is not drug trafficking, it is not democracy, it is not human rights – it was always about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.
The ministry described the incident as an “act of piracy.”
The government added that it will appeal to “all” international bodies to denounce the incident and vowed to defend its sovereignty, natural resources, and national dignity with “absolute determination”.
“Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to take from the Venezuelan people what belongs to them by historical and constitutional right,” it said.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro gestures towards supporters, during a march to commemorate the 1859 Battle of Santa Ines in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 10, 2025 [Gaby Oraa/ Reuters]What are the potential consequences for Venezuela’s oil exports?
Experts say the seizure could produce short-term uncertainty for Venezuelan oil exports, largely because “this has been the first time [the United States has]… seized a shipment of Venezuelan oil”, Carlos Eduardo Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera.
That may make shippers hesitate, though the broader impact is limited, Pina said, since “the US allows the Chevron company to continue extracting Venezuelan oil”, and US group Chevron holds a special waiver permitting it to produce and export crude despite wider sanctions.
Chevron, which operates joint ventures with PDVSA, said its operations in Venezuela remain normal and continue without disruption.
The US oil major, which is currently responsible for all Venezuelan crude exports to the US, increased shipments last month to 150,000 barrels per day (bopd), up from 128,000 bpd in October.
Inside Venezuela, Pina warned the move could spark financial panic, however: “It could instil fear, trigger a currency run… and worsen the humanitarian crisis.”
How will this affect US-Venezuela relations?
Diplomatically, Pina said he views the action as a political message to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, noting its timing – “the same day that [opposition leader] Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize” – and calling it “a gesture of strength… to remind that [the US is present in the Latin American region].”
Maduro has long argued that the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are not, in fact, aimed at preventing drug running, but are part of a plan to effect regime change in Venezuela. Trump has authorised CIA operations in Venezuela and has given conflicting messages about whether he would consider a land invasion.
Analysts see this latest action as part of a broader strategy to pressure the Maduro government.
“This is certainly an escalation designed to put additional pressure on the Maduro regime, causing it to fracture internally or convincing Maduro to leave,” said Cancian.
“It is part of a series of US actions such as sending the Ford to the Caribbean, authorising the CIA to move against the Maduro regime, and conducting flybys with bombers and, recently, F-18s.”
Cancian added that the broader meaning of the operation depends on what comes next.
“The purpose also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he said. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Because Venezuela depends so heavily on oil revenue, it could not withstand such a blockade for long.”
