Trump Administration Venezuela Shenanigans

US accused of stealing oil after intercepting third Venezuelan tanker​

Published On 22 Dec 2025
The US is pursuing a third oil tanker in international waters off the coast of Venezuela. The operation followed the US Coast Guard’s interception of a second vessel on Saturday. Venezuela called the seizures acts of piracy. Al Jazeera’s Heidi Zhou-Castro explains.

"We save 25,000 lives every single time we knock out a boat." President Trump commenting on Coast Guard seizure of second oil tanker near Venezuela / CBS Evening News 25/12/22

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A Republican supporting Trump on Venezuela:
Graham calls for regime change in Venezuela as Trump admin ramps up pressure

by Ian Kayanja / Mon, December 22, 2025 at 2:47 PM
While speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Kristen Welker, Graham claimed Donald Trump wouldn't be going back on a campaign promise to keep America out of wars should the government push for the overthrow of Nicolás Maduro. Graham furthered the allegations made by the Trump administration that Maduro is the kingpin of a narco drug trafficking ring, without providing evidence to support the claim.


A Republican opposing Trump on Venezuela:

Rand Paul says seizure of oil tankers in Caribbean a 'prelude to war'​

By Nicholas Kerr / December 21, 2025, 11:15 AM
‘I consider it a provocation and a prelude to war’: Paul on oil tanker seizure ABC News
"I'm not for confiscating these liners. I'm not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people that are suspected of being drug dealers. I'm not for any of this," Paul told ABC News' "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

Trump leaves open option of war with Venezuela​

His comments came after ramping up the US military around the South American country, striking alleged drug smuggling boats and seizing sanctioned oil tankers.​

Blowing up suspected drug traffickers, imposing economic sanctions, and confiscating oil or ships are all illegal crimes according to international and US law.

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Trump administration sued over 2 deaths in boat strike off Venezuela's coast​

By Nate Raymond
Tue, January 27, 2026

BOSTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Family members of two men killed in a U.S. missile strike against a suspected drug boat near Venezuela filed a wrongful death lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging the pair were murdered in a "manifestly unlawful" military campaign targeting civilian vessels.

Civil rights lawyers filed the lawsuit in Boston's federal court, ‌marking the first court challenge to one of the 36 U.S. missile strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean authorized by President ‌Donald Trump's administration that have killed more than 120 people since September.

Family members of Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo—two Trinidadian men who were among six killed during an October 14 strike—in the lawsuit say the two men did fishing and farm work in Venezuela and had been returning to their homes in Las Cuevas, Trinidad when they were attacked.

"These are lawless killings in cold blood; killings ⁠for sport and killings for theater, which ‌is why we need a court of law to proclaim what is true and constrain what is lawless," Baher Azmy, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said ‍in a statement.

His group and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the novel lawsuit under the Death on the High Seas Act, a maritime law that allows family members to sue for wrongful deaths occurring on the high seas, and the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law that allows foreign citizens to sue in U.S. courts for violations of international law.

The lawsuit was filed by Lenore ‌Burnley, Joseph's mother, and Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo's sister, and seeks only damages from the U.S. government for the two deaths, not an injunction that would prevent further strikes.
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