post<\/a> on the subject, Trump echoed Miller\u2019s assertions that Venezuelans had stolen oil from the US.<\/p>\n\u201cVenezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before \u2013 Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The blockade is part of the increasingly confrontational approach Trump has taken towards Venezuela and its left-wing President Nicolas Maduro, who served as vice president under the late Chavez.<\/p>\n
Last week, the US military \u2013 which has been amassing military assets near Venezuela \u2013 seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a move that Caracas denounced as \u201cinternational piracy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Since September, the US has also been bombing vessels near the South American country in the Caribbean Sea that it says are drug boats, in a deadly campaign many legal experts call a violation of domestic and international laws.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the publication Vanity Fair quoted White House chief of staff Susie Wiles as saying that the US boat strikes aim to topple the Venezuelan president, who has faced accusations of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n
Wiles reportedly told the magazine that Trump \u201cwants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries \u2018uncle’\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has also taken several actions against the Maduro government itself. In November, the administration designated the \u201cCartel de los Soles\u201d as a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d, even though the term does not refer to an organised group.<\/p>\n
Rather, it is a reference to alleged corruption within the Venezuelan government and military.<\/p>\n
There is no evidence, however, to back the claim that Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel, nor that Venezuela is a major source of US-bound narcotics.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Trump nevertheless said he would name \u201cthe Venezuelan regime\u201d a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d, citing the \u201ctheft of our [US] assets\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another grievance that Trump and his aides have cited is the unfounded claim that Maduro intentionally sent criminals and gang members to the US over the past years.<\/p>\n
But Venezuela\u2019s vast oil reserves \u2013 believed to be the largest in the world \u2013 have been a particular point of contention.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, citing anonymous sources, the news publication Politico reported that the Trump administration had been approaching private oil companies to ask if they were interested in returning to Venezuela, should Maduro be removed from power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been the genesis of an outreach with the industry on the potential of reentering Venezuela,\u201d one anonymous source told Politico.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut frankly, there\u2019s not a lot of interest from the industry, in light of lower oil prices and more attractive fields globally.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, prominent Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado has promised to privatise the country\u2019s oil sector and open it up to investment should Maduro lose power. She won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stephen Miller, a top aide to United States President Donald Trump, has suggested that Venezuela\u2019s oil belongs to Washington, describing the nationalisation of the South American country\u2019s petroleum industry as \u201ctheft\u201d. Miller\u2019s comments on Wednesday raise further questions over the Trump administration\u2019s claim that drug smuggling is its primary source of the tension with Venezuela. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}