Trump's "selective blockade", a bet beyond Venezuelan oil

The U.S. President, Donald Trump, announced a "total and complete blockade of all sanctioned tankers entering and leaving" Venezuela, a strategy that, according to analysts, aims to be selective and is part of Washington's growing pressure on the South American country to access not only crude oil but also its other natural resources. Trump did not specify how many tankers would be affected and argued that his goal is to recover the oil that, he said on Wednesday, Venezuela took from American companies. Caracas, for its part, guaranteed the fulfillment of its crude oil export commitments, which are mainly destined for China and other Asian countries, with nearly 700,000 barrels dispatched daily.

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The United States applies "economic pressure for resources and for interests that sustain the North American economy," Reinaldo Quintero, president of the Venezuelan Association of Small and Medium Petroleum Industry (Petropymi), told EFE. "Venezuela -added- has a resource that was certified as the first oil reserve on the planet and the United States is the first consumer of oil on the planet." In that context, Quintero considered it "obvious" that they are not talking "about the fight for democracy or equality or anything like this", but "about geopolitics".

Tension in the Caribbean

Trump's words are set against the backdrop of the naval and military deployment that the United States ordered last August in the Caribbean, under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, but which Caracas denounces as an operation for a regime change. In another chapter of the tension generated in this area - under warning for air safety, which unleashed a wave of temporary flight cancellations to Venezuela -, Washington seized the Skipper ship last week, sanctioned in 2022 and which on this occasion was sailing under a false flag and Venezuelan crude oil. The White House also announced a new round of sanctions that included three nephews of Cilia Flores, wife of President Nicolás Maduro and the country's first "combatant", as he usually calls her. For Maduro, with the blockade announced by Trump, the "truth" of what the United States seeks was "revealed". "A regime change is intended in Venezuela to impose a puppet government that would not last 47 hours, which would come to hand over the Constitution, sovereignty, and wealth," he said Wednesday at an official event.