Venezuela to continue oil trade, Maduro says, after Trump's blockade announcement
Venezuela will continue to trade oil, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday, one day after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the country.
“Trade in and out will continue -- our oil and all our natural wealth that by the constitution and Bolivar's legacy belongs -- our wealth, our land, and our oil -- to its only legitimate owner, which for centuries and centuries has been our sovereign people of Venezuela, the absolute owner of the land, subsoil and all its wealth,” Maduro said, originally in Spanish.
Maduro said Trump’s “intention” is regime change in Venezuela. “This will just not happen, never, never, never -- Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never,” he said.
Maduro's comments come after Trump announced Tuesday what he called a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers going into or out of Venezuela, ratcheting up American pressure on Maduro's regime.
"Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America," Trump wrote in a lengthy post on his social media platform. "It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before -- 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."
It was not immediately clear what stolen oil and land Trump was referring to. ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment. However, under Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan government expropriated assets from some American oil companies after the country nationalized oil fields in 2007.
In the post, Trump announced "A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela" and demanded the return of oil and assets.
The Venezuelan government responded to Trump's post, calling his declaration a "reckless and serious threat," against the country that it says violates international law, free trade and freedom of navigation.
"The President of the United States intends to impose in an absolutely irrational manner, a supposed naval military blockade on Venezuela with the objective of stealing the wealth that belongs to our homeland," the Venezuelan government said in a statement.
The Venezuelan government said its ambassador to the United Nations will "proceed to denounce this serious violation of international law against Venezuela.” It called on “the people of the world to reject” Trump’s announcement.
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world, and oil exports are the government’s main source of revenue.
The U.S. currently has 11 warships in the Caribbean -- the most in decades -- but even with an increased military presence, that would likely not be enough to put in place a blockade in the traditional sense, which involves sealing a country's coastline completely and would effectively have been a declaration of war.
Trump's announcement could be a precursor to the seizure of more tankers, after the U.S. last week seized a sanctioned oil tanker off Venezuela's coast that officials said was involved in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations and used to transport oil between the South American country and Iran. The oil tanker was headed to Cuba. Maduro called the seizure an "act of international piracy."
The U.S. Treasury Department last Thursday announced sanctions on six additional tankers -- White Crane, Kiara M, H Constance, Lattafa, Tamia and Monique -- and six shipping companies it said transported Venezuelan crude oil in recent months.
The Treasury Department said the sanctions are designed to attack Venezuela’s oil sector, which they claim "continues to fund Maduro’s illegitimate regime." The measures were part of a larger package that also sanctioned three Maduro family members and a business associate of the Venezuelan president.
It's possible the U.S. will sanction additional vessels in the coming days.
Broadly speaking, the U.S. currently has sanctions on hundreds of vessels. Most recently, the U.S. sanctioned 183 Russian tankers in January 2025, and in November 2025, the U.S. sanctioned 170 tankers involved with Iran's oil trade.
Reuters reported last week the fleet of sanctioned ships helping move Venezuelan oil numbered about 30. According to Tanker Trackers, there are more than a dozen sanctioned tankers in Venezuelan waters at the moment.
Separately, since September, the U.S. military has launched dozens of strikes on vessels allegedly carrying drugs -- moves the Trump administration has said are about stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S. These strikes have killed at least 95 people.
Trump's post Tuesday evening came after White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was quoted in Vanity Fair as saying that Trump "wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle."
In the post on Tuesday, Trump denounced Maduro's government as a "Hostile Regime."
While the U.S. has long considered Maduro the head of a corrupt dictatorial regime, Trump last month, in an unprecedented move, declared him the head of a foreign terrorist organization.
"The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping," Trump wrote in the post on Tuesday. "For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION."
ABC News' Aicha Elhammar contributed to this report.
