Donald Trump has claimed Venezuela has stolen ‘all’ of the oil from the United States.
There have been rumblings of a potential conflict for months between Washington and Caracas as Operation Southern Spear attempts to stop the flow of drugs into America.
Trump’s announced his intention is ‘whatever we had’ returned by the government in Caracas.
Under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan government seized assets from some American oil companies after the country nationalised oil fields in 2007.
The US President expressed his frustration that the US didn’t push back sooner as he gave an update on his blockade to reporters.
He said: ‘Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had — they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching.
‘But they’re not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back.’
According to the Washington Post, US servicemen could be briefed for more ‘forceful’ naval operations as forces amass in the Caribbean.
Trump was pictured meeting with Marco Rubio in the Oval Office.
F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, Growler electronic warfare aircraft, and Hawkeye early warning planes have also been spotted in the air, according to FlightRadar.
Right wing commentator Tucker Carlson claimed a member of Congress told him that President Trump will be announcing ‘a war is coming’ during a national address.
Asked if Trump was going to declare war on Venezuela, he said: ‘I don’t know the answer … here’s what I know so far, which is that members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war is coming and it’ll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9 o’clock by the president.’
He then backtracked, adding: ‘Who knows if that is going to happen. I don’t know. And I never want to overstate what I know which is pretty limited in general.’
‘Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,’ Trump said on Truth Social on Tuesday night.
‘It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before – Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.’
Despite Trump’s announcement that ‘Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America’ was met with derision by Venezuela’s Foreign Minister, Yvan Gil Pinto, who said that crude oil exports are ‘proceeding normally’.
He added that PDVSA, the main oil company in Venezuela, is exercising its ‘rights to free navigation and free trade’ under international law.
Venezuela’s government released a statement accusing Mr Trump of ‘violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation’.
The statement read: ‘On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property. Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its riches.
‘The President of the United States intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.’
The prospect added to Venezuelans’ collective anxiety over their country’s future on Wednesday.
‘Well, we’ve already had so many crises, shortages of so many things — food, gasoline — that one more … well, one doesn’t worry anymore,’ Milagro Viana said while waiting to catch a bus in Caracas, the capital.
‘Things are going to get tough here,’ Pedro Arangura said while he waited for a remittance store to open. ‘We have to put up with it. Nobody wants it, but it’s going to happen.’
Arangura said material difficulties could lead to Maduro’s ouster. That’s essentially what Venezuela’s opposition has been telling supporters in recent months.
More than 80% of Venezuelan oil output is exported. Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions against the country in 2017, Maduro’s government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
The White House has said the military operation, which began in the Caribbean and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, is meant to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
The operation has killed more than 80 people, with Venezuelans among them.
Maduro denies the drug accusations, and he and his allies have repeatedly said that the operation’s true purpose is to force a government change in Venezuela.
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