The President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Wednesday that his country intercepted and confiscated a tanker off the coast of Venezuela, escalating tension between Washington and Caracas. "We have just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a big, very big tanker, the largest ever seized, actually," the head of state declared at the start of a roundtable with business leaders at the White House. Bloomberg agency had first reported exclusively, citing familiar sources, that a U.S.-sanctioned tanker had been confiscated by the North American country off the coast of Venezuela. This seizure could make the export of Venezuelan oil much more difficult, as other carriers will likely now be more reluctant to carry out their shipments. These events occur on the same day as the ceremony in Oslo for the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who did not attend, although she assured she will arrive in the Norwegian capital in the coming hours. The U.S. military presence in the Caribbean. The Donald Trump administration has increased pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro, whom it accuses of leading an international drug trafficking network through the supposed criminal group 'Cartel of the Suns,' something that Caracas categorically denies. Since September, the U.S. Armed Forces have destroyed more than two dozen vessels allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific, extrajudicially killing more than 80 crew members. Trump has promised that "soon" attacks will begin within Venezuelan territory, while Maduro has called on his citizens to unite against U.S. threats and enlist in citizen militias. PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company, is working on drilling tasks with the U.S. Chevron, which has a license from the Treasury Department that exempts it from sanctions. Vice President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, this Wednesday called for unity between her country and nations such as Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico at a time of tension due to the deployment of U.S. naval forces in the Caribbean Sea. "We call on the peoples of our Latin America and the Caribbean to unite as one. We from Venezuela are not willing to negotiate, to deliver, or to succumb," she added. "We are ready, President (Gustavo) Petro, to unite; we are ready, President (Luiz Inácio) Lula, to unite; President (Claudia) Sheinbaum to unite," stated the official. "Brothers and sisters of our Latin America and the Caribbean: either we unite or we perish."
