Today the U.S. Coast Guard seized a Venezuelan oil tanker in the Caribbean. This unclassified video shows the operation, as American forces rappelled down from a helicopter:
President Trump made a brief statement and answered a few questions from reporters about the operation today, without giving much away.
I don’t know what the legal basis for seizing the tanker is. By executive order, President Trump has designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and has closely identified the Maduro regime with that gang. It has therefore described Venezuela as “a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States, and which poses a substantial danger to the United States.” That may have laid a legal foundation for the seizure, or there may be entirely different grounds of which I am unaware (but which also do not seem to be mentioned in the news stories that have emerged so far).
Trump obviously is trying to force Maduro from office, a consummation devoutly to be wished, as someone once said. He has no desire to invade Venezuela, and I doubt it will come to that. But unpopular dictators who dominate failing, poverty-stricken countries are often surprisingly hard to dislodge. In any sane world, the Chavez-Maduro Communist dictatorship, which has reduced one of the richest countries in the world to a place where children search dumpsters for food, would be long gone. Let’s hope it happens soon, and a new, pro-America day dawns in Venezuela.
