Trump’s blockade against Venezuela is for “our oil.” Experts say it isn’t the US’s to take.

President Donald Trump appears resolute to do anything in his power to acquire oil from Venezuela—even if it means sidestepping congressional approval. In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump announced that he was ordering “A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.” It’s an escalation in the administration’s military operations in the region. 

Trump’s blockade, which is considered an act of war under some international treaties, did not undergo a congressional approval process.

The ongoing US operations against Venezuela—along with any potential checks and balances on those operations—is a quickly developing situation. On Wednesday, the Senate signed off on the annual defense policy bill that included provisions which “could force the Pentagon to turn over footage of strikes” on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, according to reporting from Politico.

It’s unclear if and how President Trump will address the blockade, the defense bill, or anything else about decisions regarding Venezuela during his speech to Americans at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

Trump’s escalation comes after US forces last week seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. At the time, the president said it was “seized for a very good reason” and, when asked what would become of the oil on board, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

The US also hasn’t ceased its boat strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. On Monday, three targeted boat strikes killed eight people whom the administration alleges are drug smugglers. In total, this campaign, which has drawn bipartisan criticism, has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels so far. 

During a new exclusive Vanity Fair interview with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, she claimed that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.” 

In his Tuesday post, Trump referred to President Nicolás Maduro’s government as a “Hostile Regime” and accused it of using oil to “finance themselves” and commit crimes. The Maduro government, in a statement, said Trump’s actions were “grotesque” and “warmongering threats.” 

“On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property,” the statement said. “Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its riches. The President of the United States intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”

US lawmakers also expressed outrage.

“A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war,” Representative Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said on X following Trump’s post. “A war,” he added, “that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.” Castro is a part of a bipartisan group of congressmembers putting forth a resolution to be voted on Thursday in the House, directing the president to end “hostilities” with Venezuela. 

Venezuela is home to the largest known reserves of oil, and according to Francisco J. Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University in Houston, oil represents more than 90 percent of Venezuela’s exports and more than half of its fiscal revenue. 

“In practice, this decision amounts to a full naval blockade of Venezuela,” Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver, told The Washington Post. “Cutting off all oil revenue will lead to a massive reduction in food imports and is likely to trigger the first major famine in the Western Hemisphere in modern history,” he added. 

On Truth Social, Trump also said he would be designating “the Venezuelan Regime” as a “FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.” According to the Washington Post, that is a step that is legally taken by the State Department rather than the White House. If the president somehow follows through on this claim, it would make Venezuela the first entire country to be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). (In rare past cases, the United States has designated an element of a foreign government a FTO, as the Trump administration did in his first term with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the Iranian government.) 

Trump claimed during his Tuesday evening declaration that the Venezuelan officials had stolen the oil in question from the US, writing that Maduro’s government needs to “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” 

Like a number of other oil-producing nations, Venezuela, decades ago, nationalized its oil industry, which is operated by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA. 

“Venezuela’s natural resources never belonged to the United States,” David Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an international energy advisory consultancy, told The Washington Post. “While there have been charges of expropriation, which have been arbitrated in an international tribunal, there is no basis for arguing that Venezuela’s oil was stolen from the United States.”