WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to hold the oil tanker it seized in waters near Venezuela at an American port in Texas but release the crew once the vessel docks, according to two U.S. officials.
The officials said the tanker was seized in international waters. The American personnel on board the tanker have been interviewing the crew and offered for the U.S. to facilitate their travel from the ship after it arrives at a port in Galveston, Texas, the officials said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the U.S. would seize the oil on the tanker after it goes through a “legal process” to do so.
The U.S. seized the vessel, a large tanker known as the Skipper, on Wednesday during a joint operation by the Coast Guard and the Navy at President Donald Trump’s direction as part of his effort to ratchet up the pressure on the Venezuelan regime. It comes amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, with the Trump administration bombing alleged drug-smuggling vessels and building up military assets in the region. Trump also has threatened that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s days in power are numbered.
The administration has said the tanker is used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Leavitt called it “a sanctioned shadow vessel, known for carrying black market sanctioned oil” to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
The administration has provided few details about the tanker, the fate of its crew or the legal rationale it used to seize the vessel.
Prosecutors for the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia have been leading the investigation that led to the seizure, according to a spokesperson for the office. The spokesperson said the search warrant and the accompanying affidavit authorizing the seizure remain under seal in U.S. District Court in Washington. The U.S. attorney’s office as of Thursday had not been given a timetable to unseal the warrant package, the spokesperson said.
A federal judge signed the warrant several weeks ago, a separate federal law enforcement official said.
Unsealing the warrant and the accompanying affidavit would provide details of the legal rationale for seizing the vessel.
The U.S. can cite a variety of reasons for any vessel seizures, including sanctions violations or illegal smuggling of drugs or weapons supporting designated terrorist organizations.
“The Trump administration is executing on the president’s sanction policies,” Leavitt said. “And we’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world.”
The Skipper is the same vessel the Treasury Department previously identified as the Adisa, an oil tanker tied to a sanctions-evading smuggling network that U.S. officials say moved Iranian oil to generate revenue for Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. The Adisa was owned through shell companies linked to network facilitator Viktor Artemov and used to transport oil on behalf of the smuggling network, according to a 2022 sanctions note from the Treasury.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto described the seizure as a “blatant theft.”
“The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have been laid bare. It is not migration. It is not drug trafficking. It is not democracy. It is not human rights,” Pinto said in a statement on social media. “It has always been about our natural wealth, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.”
Trump’s aggressive approach to Venezuela, from the military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats to threats of regime change, has drawn some support but also bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers’ reaction to the seizure has been mixed and largely fallen on party lines.
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said Americans should expect more similarly aggressive actions from the Trump administration.
“I think everybody ought to get used to this,” Schmitt said. “This administration is very much focused on pivoting away from forever wars on the sands of the Middle East and actually protecting the American people in our own hemisphere. So, this isn’t a one and done deal.”
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Trump is “sleepwalking into a war with Venezuela.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that the operation was led by the Coast Guard with support from the Defense and Justice departments, as well as the FBI.
“It was a successful operation directed by the president to ensure that we’re pushing back on a regime that is systematically covering and flooding our country with deadly drugs and killing our next generation of Americans,” Noem said at a congressional hearing Thursday.
NBC News has reported that reported that the bulk of the drugs coming from Venezuela, more than 90%, are headed to Europe, not the U.S.
The ship’s dramatic seizure is fueling speculation that Trump could greenlight a full-scale war against Venezuela if Maduro refuses to relinquish power on his own. Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch military strikes against Venezuela, saying it could be necessary to take out drug targets inside the country.
Trump’s Pentagon has assembled one of the most massive military buildups in the region, estimated to be larger than that during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
The U.S. now has about 15,000 troops and a dozen ships, including America’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, deployed to the region, according to a defense official.
It also has more than 10 F-35 fighter jets in Puerto Rico, and a team of special forces is operating in the region.
The Pentagon has said that since early September, the military has struck more than 20 vessels the administration says wee smuggling drugs, killing more than 80 people. The administration has not put forward any evidence backing up its claims.
Late month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also signed an agreement in the Dominican Republican to secure U.S. access to the country’s main airport and the San Isidro military base. The deal allows the U.S. for a limited time to refuel aircraft and transport equipment at restricted areas within the air base and at Las Américas International Airport, officials said at the time.
The U.S. firepower now off Venezuela and the new access to Dominican runways give Trump a range of options to strike at the regime and the cartels from the air or on the ground.
Leavitt declined to speculate on Trump’s ultimate objectives in the region or whether his pressure on Venezuela is only about drugs or also oil.
“The president has taken a new approach that has not been taken by any administration for quite some time to actually focus on what’s going on in our backyard,” she said, adding that his policy toward Venezuela is aimed at stopping the flow of illegal drugs to the U.S. and “demolish the foreign terrorist organizations and drug cartels” in the region and around the world.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday evening, Trump was asked if the campaign against Venezuela is still focused on drugs or if oil is now part of the equation.
Trump said it's “about a lot of things,” arguing that one component had to do with criminals entering the United States.
“So it has to do with a lot of things,” Trump said. “They’ve treated us badly, and I guess now we’re not treating them so good.”
Trump, who campaigned on extracting the U.S. from foreign conflicts, has not outlined for Americans why military action in Venezuela may be necessary, what risks it could entail for American troops or how it might benefit the U.S.
During his first administration, he seized tankers similar to the Skipper. In 2020, he directed U.S. personnel to seize four tankers bound for Venezuela carrying Iranian gasoline based on a federal court order, for instance. In that case, no military force was used, and the ships complied with the order.
Asked whether regime change in Venezuela is on the table and why Trump has taken more action against Venezuela in his second term, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement: “President Trump has been clear in his message to Maduro: stop sending drugs and criminals to our country. President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country.”
