Trump announced a blockade of Venezuelan oil tankers, but the policy lacks crucial details on what counts as sanctioned and how it would be enforced. Legal experts question whether it violates war powers law, and the move risks international escalation and severe harm to ordinary Venezuelans.
Chapters
A Venezuelan blockade with big legal and human stakes. A blockade is a simple word for a policy that can spiral quickly out of control. According to the Times, President Trump announced that the United States will impose a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, escalating pressure on Nicolas Madero and targeting Venezuela's oil revenue. The the reporting makes clear that a core detail remains undefined. What exactly qualifies as a sanctioned oil tanker and how many ships would actually be affected. Trump described the move in sweeping bellicose language, writing that Venezuela is, quote, completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America and adding it will only get bigger. The Times notes that the announcement left critical enforcement and legal questions unanswered. The move follows a recent US Seizure of a tanker in the Caribbean carrying Venezuelan oil bound for Cuba and China after a federal judge issued a warrant tied to the ship's earlier Iran related activity. Trump also said the blockade would continue until Venezuela returned all of the oil, land and other assets that they had previously stole from us. Okay, what's the real message here? Trump likes to talk tough and he likes to talk tough against dictators in places like Venezuela. And initially it feels good. But how is this going to feel six months from now when perhaps the 28 million people living in Venezuela are starving to death and they are all climbing the walls trying to get into the United States just so they can survive? Has this thing really been thought out all the way? Let's dig a little deeper here. So the blockade is a nice word. It gets a headline, but it creates a lot of legal chaos. Now he claims Venezuela is completely surrounded. Okay, don't know if that's completely true, but it does bring up a lot of questions. Now one of the biggest questions, of course, is from Trump supporters who way back in 2016 said, finally, we love a candidate, not a Republican or a Democrat, who says keep us out of foreign wars, keep us out of entanglements. We're tired of being the, the policeman of the world. And now they're seeing whether it's sanctioning bombs in the Middle east, whether it's starting wars, picking wars with people in this hemisphere, that it's starting to look a little bit messy. Now, has Congress formally been notified under the War powers Rules? No. Is there any declaration of war? No. Again, what's actually a sanction? A sanctioned oil tanker? Nobody really seems to know any. Is it the Navy? Is the Coast Guard going to involved? What if Venezuela escorts ships militarily? What's going to happen what if other countries say, hey, the United States can just start taking over ships and, and taking over things. Why don't we do it? What if the Chinese want to start doing it? What if the Somalians want to start doing it? It's a very fine line between official government sanctioned activity that's legitimate and piracy. Now, I understand nobody in Washington is going to officially call what Trump did piracy. Okay? It wasn't just to get the oil or jewels or money off of one boat. It's about more than that. But why is there no UN involved? Why is there no organization of the American states involved? What sort of precedent does this set? A part of being a conservative is supposed to be the idea that you take power very seriously and you don't use it willy nilly. You think about unintended consequences. What are the consequences of the United States just saying, you know, we don't like the leader of this, and I'm not a fan of Maduro, let me be very blunt. And what's happened to that society is a travesty. I happen to have done a lot of work with Venezuelans, old 15, you know, before the current regime, 15, 20 years ago, on a joint venture with American oil companies. And this was a joint venture called, called Amarada Hess. And this was an oil refinery in the Caribbean. And the Venezuelans and the Americans got along beautifully. That refinery has all been shut down and no longer functioning in any way. And the same could be said about the Venezuelan society, its economy. It is an absolute mess. The only thing they have going for them is could this possibly topple the regime? And we have, you know, some beautiful flowing, wonder, wonderful Canada style government. It's possible. But that's not usually how it works. It's not how it usually works in South America. It's not usually how it works anywhere in the world. Once you start getting involved, throwing your military weight around, all sorts of unintended consequences start to happen. Trump seemed like he really bought into this conservative, more libertarian, more isolationist philosophy when he ran for president the first time. Didn't really hint that much that he changed in this last election. But now we're seeing this desire to assert himself on the national or the international stage and not worry about little congressional niceties, legal niceties like consulting Congress, working with the United Nations. So it kind of looks like we're back to the United States is the policeman for the world. So if you didn't vote for that, sorry, looks like that's what you got.
