The Trump administration plans to seize the oil aboard a tanker captured near Venezuela this week, the White House said Thursday, calling the ship a “sanctioned shadow” vessel associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the tanker is tied to black-market oil activity and currently undergoing a forfeiture process that includes interviews with those on board and the seizure of relevant evidence.
“The vessel will go to a U.S. port, and the United States does intend to seize the oil,” Leavitt said during her afternoon briefing. “However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil, and that legal process will be followed.”
The capture of the tanker, known as the Skipper, comes as tensions escalate between Venezuela and the U.S., with the Trump administration targeting alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean.
Since September, Trump has defended the strikes on boats as part of what he describes as an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Leavitt echoed that framing on Thursday when she said the administration will not stand by while “sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black-market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narcoterrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world.” She did not provide evidence of these claims at the press briefing.
President Donald Trump announced to reporters on Wednesday that the tanker had been seized but did not provide details. It was Attorney General Pam Bondi who, hours later, identified the ship as a tanker that had been previously sanctioned “due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.”
When asked about what the U.S. would do with the oil, Trump told reporters Wednesday that he didn’t know.
“We keep it, I guess,” Trump said.
The Skipper is the same vessel previously identified by the Treasury Department 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.”
The Trump administration has also increased U.S. military presence in the Caribbean in recent weeks. The USS Gerald R. Ford, which carries squadrons of fighter jets and guided-missile destroyers, was sent to the region last month in what was seen as a pressure tactic against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Maduro, who is charged with narcoterrorism in U.S. federal court, has accused the Trump administration of trying to manufacture a war against him. He spoke to farmers in an appearance on Wednesday but did not mention the oil tanker seizure at the time.
However, he did appear to make reference to tensions with the U.S. by saying that Venezuela is ready for a fight.
“It’s not a time for cowards,” he said. “It’s time for combat.”