WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump demanded Wednesday that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a "blockade" against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.
Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against leader Nicolás Maduro, suggesting his administration's moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers already are diverting away from Venezuela.
"We’re not going to be letting anybody going through who shouldn’t be going through,” Trump told reporters. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it.”
U.S. oil companies dominated Venezuela's petroleum industry until the country's leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014 an international arbitration panel ordered the country's socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.
While Venezuela's oil has long dominated relations with the U.S., the Trump administration has focused on Maduro's links to drug traffickers, accusing his government of facilitating the shipment of dangerous drugs into the U.S. In his social media post Tuesday night, Trump said Venezuela was using using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes.
U.S. forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela's coast amid a massive military buildup that includes the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier.
The military also has carried out a series of strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed a total of at least 99 people, including four in a strike Wednesday. Those attacks have prompted questions from lawmakers and legal experts about their legal justification. Trump also has said he is considering strikes on land.
Trump's talk of ‘stolen assets’
Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff, likened Venezuela's move to nationalize its oil industry to a heist.
“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela," Miller wrote on social media Wednesday. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs."
Venezuela first moved to nationalize its oil industry in the 1970s, a process that expanded under Chávez, who nationalized hundreds of private businesses and foreign-owned assets, including oil projects run by ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. That led to the arbitration panel's 2014 order.
“There is a case that can be made that Venezuela owes this money to Exxon. I don’t think it’s ever been paid,” economist Philip Verleger said.
Trump blamed his predecessors for not taking a harder line against Venezuela over the asset seizures.
“They took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching,” Trump said Wednesday. "But they’re not going to do that again. We want it back. They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”
Chevron has a waiver from the U.S. government for oil production in Venezuela, and the Texas-based oil giant says its operations have not been disrupted.
Venezuela’s debt to Chevron “has decreased substantially” since the company’s license to resume exporting Venezuelan oil to the U.S. was first granted in 2022, said Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston. He said the amount is not public.
A new designation for Maduro's government?
There was no change Wednesday to the list of foreign terrorist organizations after Trump said in his post that the "Venezuelan Regime" has been designated as one.
Officials at several national security agencies were told not to take Trump’s remarks about the designation literally and they should be treated as a figure of speech, according to a U.S. official involved in the discussions.
That official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal interagency communications, also stressed that the “blockade” Trump announced applies only to previously sanctioned vessels against which certain actions are already authorized, such as the seizure last week.
The State Department, which oversees the list, didn’t respond to requests for clarification.
Trump's Justice Department in 2020 indicted Maduro on narcoterrorism charges and U.S. authorities have alleged that Venezuela's leaders have profited from drug trafficking. Last month, the Trump administration designated a group linked to Maduro — the Cartel de los Soles — as a terrorist organization.
Venezuela decries American ‘piracy’
Maduro called United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday for a conversation “regarding the current tensions in the region,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
“During the call, the secretary-general reaffirmed the United Nations’ position on the need for member states to respect international law, particularly the United Nations Charter, exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability,” Haq said.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil demanded in a letter to the U.N. Security Council, which was obtained by The Associated Press, that the U.S. immediately release the “kidnapped crew” and return the oil illegally confiscated on the high seas.
In a second letter Wednesday, Venezuela’s U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada called for an emergency meeting of the U.N.’s most powerful body to discuss “the ongoing U.S. aggression.”
Citing Trump's social media post, Moncada said, “this means that the U.S. government is claiming the world’s largest oil reserves as its own, in what would be one of the greatest acts of plunder in human history.”
In addition to urging the Security Council to condemn the taking of the tanker, Gil urged the U.N.’s most powerful body for a written statement stating that it hasn’t authorized actions against Venezuela “or against the international commercialization of its oil.”
While the strikes on alleged drug boats have raised questions about the use of military force, Trump's seizure of the tanker and other actions against sanctioned entities are consistent with past American policy, said retired U.S. Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, now a professor at Syracuse University.
He also noted that from a military standpoint, seizing sanctioned oil tankers and imposing a blockade are far less risky than direct military confrontation.
“U.S. policy supports peaceful, democratic transition in Venezuela,” Murrett said. “If Maduro agrees tomorrow to step down and have a free and open election, I think we’d be delighted, Democrats and Republicans alike.”
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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Cathy Bussewitz in New York and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.