President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that he would declare Venezuela’s government a “foreign terrorist organization” and ordered a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers coming and going from the country.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “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.”
In his post Tuesday, Trump added that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime is rife with corruption. Trump first imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, during his first administration, leading the Maduro regime to resort to a fleet of unflagged tankers that deliberately avoided U.S. checkpoints.