Washington tightens grip on Venezuela with legal moves to seize oil tankers

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to formally seize a sanctioned oil tanker and nearly 2 million barrels of oil intercepted off the coast of Venezuela last December.

The legal move marks a new effort by the Trump administration to assert control over Venezuela’s oil industry following the capture of leader Nicolás Maduro.

The lawsuit is the first in a legal process to gain official control of at least 10 tankers intercepted since late 2025. U.S. officials allege that Venezuela has been using a "ghost fleet" of vessels flying false flags to smuggle crude oil.

"The era of secretly financing regimes that pose a clear threat to the United States is over," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.

The seizure of the vessel Skipper in December represents a significant escalation in President Trump’s campaign to pressure the Maduro government by severing its oil revenue.

Maduro, who was apprehended in a U.S. raid last month and transported to New York to face drug trafficking charges, called the vessel's seizure an "act of international piracy."

The Justice Department alleges the Skipper transported oil from both Iran and Venezuela to generate revenue for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

The Department of Justice’s recent filing transcends mere legal procedure, emerging as a sophisticated instrument of foreign policy for the Trump administration. By leveraging federal courts in Washington, the administration is seeking to formalize direct control over the core economic assets of a sovereign state. This strategy represents a clear pivot toward "lawfare"—the use of legal mechanisms to enforce geopolitical objectives—establishing a significant precedent for future interventions.

This move, following the indictment of Nicolás Maduro, signals a more aggressive evolution of the “maximum pressure” campaign. The objective has shifted from punitive sanctions and regime change toward a comprehensive restructuring of the Venezuelan oil industry under U.S. oversight. Washington’s calculated easing of broad sanctions to allow foreign firms back into the country reveals a long-term intent to dominate both production flows and the resulting revenue streams.

For global energy markets, the maneuver presents a dual narrative. While reintegrating Venezuelan crude into the global supply chain under U.S. stewardship could provide downward pressure on oil prices, it simultaneously introduces substantial geopolitical risk. Other oil-producing nations, particularly those with adversarial ties to Washington, will likely view this as a cautionary tale, fearing their own national assets could eventually fall within the crosshairs of the U.S. legal system.

The Trump administration’s hawkish stance on socialist regimes, such as the Maduro government in Venezuela, resonates strongly with a significant portion of the Vietnamese-American community. For many in the older generation—the regulars at the phở restaurants and community centers of Little Saigon—these policies are seen as a vital check on authoritarianism. However, the diaspora is not a monolith. Younger Vietnamese Americans, including those working in the nail salon industry or professional sectors, often hold more nuanced views, questioning the legacy of U.S. interventionism and how shifting foreign policy might impact the community’s interests, from the flow of remittances to the stability of visa categories like F2B, H-1B, TPS, and EB-5.