Donald Trump’s seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela “may come back to bite him” and ultimately hurt his domestic political base, an expert has warned.
On Wednesday, US forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker in a sharp escalation of Washington’s campaign against Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro. The US administration has accused Maduro of narco-terrorism and has killed more than 80 people in strikes across the Caribbean Sea, which it claims are targeting boats delivering narcotics into the US.
During a briefing at the White House, the US President said: “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually.”
Asked what will happen to the oil on the tanker, Trump said: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later confirmed to reporters that the tanker is set to sail to a US port.
“The US does intend to seize the oil, however there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed,” she added.
In response, the Venezuelan government accused the US of “blatant theft” and described the seizure as “an act of international piracy”.
The US Treasury has also added three of Maduro’s nephews to the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list, as well as sanctioning six ships transporting the country’s oil.
Oil markets reacted to the US seizure with an uptick in prices as traders predicted a disruption to supply amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Analysts have warned that the market impact could broaden if such actions continue.
Reuters has reported that US officials are signalling the seizure could be the first of many as part of a broader strategy to squeeze Venezuela’s oil exports in efforts to weaken Maduro’s regime, with more than 30 other US-sanctioned vessels operating around Venezuela facing enforcement or disruption.
But experts have said that Trump’s escalating clash with the Maduro regime could ultimately backfire and cause the US President significant problems at home, appearing to contradict his “America first” policy and putting US servicemen at risk.
Repercussions for the oil price
The seizure of the sanctioned oil tanker, named The Skipper, sent a jolt through global energy markets, with traders weighing the risk that Washington’s move signals a more assertive phase of sanctions enforcement.
“The US seizing a Venezuelan tanker is a clear escalation from financial sanctions to physical interdiction – it raises the stakes for Caracas and anyone facilitating its exports,” Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, told The i Paper.
“This is less about the cargo and more about the precedent: a shift to active maritime enforcement that raises the geopolitical temperature and injects a fresh risk premium into heavy-crude supply.”
The move threatens to complicate Venezuela’s already constrained export flows. The country relies on a patchwork of re-flagged vessels, intermediaries and ship-to-ship transfers to move crude under sanctions, and the US action could spook operators that have been willing to work in grey zones.
“The immediate supply effect is modest,” Leon added. “One cargo doesn’t move balances but it can move the risk premium. The market reaction is less about barrels lost today and more about whether a pattern of interdictions is forming.”
Venezuela, a founding member of Opec, has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces approximately one million barrels a day. Locked out of global oil markets by US sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.
Domestic backlash with operation costing millions
Domestically, the decision adds another flashpoint in an already contentious US foreign policy debate. Trump campaigned on a pledge to end American entanglements overseas and the President is facing mounting criticism from within his Maga base for abandoning his “America first” principles with his focus on Gaza, Ukraine and now Venezuela.
“I do think this will hurt his base,” Dr Christopher Sabatini, senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, told The i Paper.
“Trump has tried to justify his military actions in Venezuela as a war on drugs, which was actually a false pretence, because the cocaine consumed in the United States doesn’t come from Venezuela, it only accounts for 5-8 per cent.
“What’s interesting is this completely removes that entire pretence. This isn’t about drugs anymore, it’s about regime change. It demonstrates the lie of speaking about narco-terrorists, of protecting Americans from drugs and saving American lives by taking out these drug ships.”
“We’ve already seen many of the Maga influencers, including Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer, rail against this,” he continues. “And it violates the 2016 pledge that Donald Trump used against both Hillary Clinton and George W Bush of ending the ‘forever wars’ of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Trump has already committed a vast amount of military power and money to the operation, both of which will spiral if it escalates. The US President has ordered a massive US military build-up in the region, including an aircraft carrier, other warships, fighter jets and tens of thousands of troops.
Having the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford posted and its fleet of destroyers deployed in Venezuelan waters is reportedly costing some $8m a day.
Experts warned The i Paper that this could end up costing the President votes. “Trump campaigned on keeping the US out of foreign wars, decreasing the drug epidemic in the US and fighting crime,” Dr David Andersen, an associate professor of US politics at Durham University, said. “None of this will be seriously helped by escalating conflict with Venezuela.”
“He’s looking politically weak,” Sabitini said. “Most people are concerned about affordability. That’s the buzzword in domestic politics right now. Most people are worried about the price of goods, the effect of tariffs. Meanwhile what’s dominating the headlines is this foreign adventure that he seems to have headed into without any sort of clear idea what was going to happen and how he would achieve it.
“He usually gets away with it, but this one may come back to bite him.”
US aim of regime change could cause long-term chaos
Trump’s initial plan with the boat strikes appeared to be “scaring the military around Maduro and the inner circle into defecting and overthrowing him, thinking if they rattle their sabre loudly enough they could score an easy, cheap, quick transition,” Sabatini said.
“This escalation has become much more open-ended and he’s doubling down. Five months ago this was presented as being both a quick and easy operation. Now what we’re seeing is not only is it not quick and easy, it’s involving more US assets. It’s involving incredible risk now that there are overflights flirting with Venezuelan airspace that could put service people in danger.”
“Donald Trump will try to spin his way out of this, but I think he has to realise that he’s really put himself in a box, especially as this has progressed, and that it also risks low morale within the military,” Sabatini continued. “If it starts to go south, if there is an attack that takes down an American then it could really seriously dent his reputation.”
And if Washington does succeed in getting rid of Maduro, it will spark turmoil. “There’s a very real risk that what will happen is not a clean and easy break with the Maduro government, but a descent into chaos.
“The problem is the Trump administration will not have the stomach or the political base to sustain a prolonged intervention that would be necessary to clean up any sort of chaos or mess that’s created,” Sabatini said.
During Trump’s first term, US officials ran a war game to plot out the possible consequences of Maduro being removed from power.
The resulting report, written by Douglas Farah, a national security consultant who specialises in Latin America, found that deposing Maduro would produce “chaos for a sustained period of time with no possibility of ending it”.
By repeatedly calling for Maduro’s deposition, Trump has put himself in a corner. “What happens if Maduro doesn’t leave? Now it’s Trump or Maduro and if Trump doesn’t remove Maduro, he basically loses. He looks weak. This was all about the projection of American strength and you’re doing the opposite.”
