The footage was grainy but unmistakable: US marines fast-roping from a black hawk helicopter onto the deck of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

Seizing the vessel, one of Caracas’ sanctioned “ghost ships” illegally shipping crude oil, was the prelude to the second act of Donald Trump’s campaign to topple Nicolas Maduro.

Within days, the US president announced a full naval blockade designed to sever the Venezuelan president’s economic lifeline and compel his loyal inner circle to oust him.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before,” Mr Trump declared on Tuesday.


Insiders see the move as a creative new calculus aimed at starving Mr Maduro’s government, whose survival depends on selling crude oil abroad, while simultaneously forcing his allies in Moscow and Beijing to abandon him.

“The White House is committed to the effort against the regime and seeing Maduro ousted,” a source close to the administration said.


This is the plan behind Mr Trump’s unprecedented blockade and the campaign the White House hopes rids Venezuela of its global influence.

Perched in his presidential office in Miraflores Palace, Mr Maduro has relied on the export of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to prop up his country.

Beneath him lies more crude oil than Saudi Arabia, Russia or the United States and the mineral, dubbed “liquid gold”, accounts for about 88 per cent of Venezuela’s $24bn in exports.

Since 2019, Mr Trump has sought to stop that.

In his first term, the US Treasury sanctioned Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, and threatened secondary sanctions on any entity doing business with it.


To get around this, Mr Maduro’s government has turned to a clandestine “dark fleet” of tankers to evade sanctions and keep oil flowing to buyers in China, Russia and Cuba.


Hundreds of ageing tankers now smuggle sanctioned oil, acting as a financial lifeline to Caracas. As of late November, more than 30 of the 80 ships in Venezuelan waters or approaching the country were under US sanctions.

It is a growing phenomenon. Financial intelligence firm S&P Global estimates that one in five oil tankers worldwide are used to smuggle oil from sanctioned countries.

The tactic appears to be working. Despite international pressure, oil exports rose to some 921,000 barrels per day in November, the third-highest monthly average so far this year.

By seizing the vessels, the Trump administration is attempting to sever Mr Maduro’s main source of revenue that keeps his regime afloat while tightening the economic noose.


“What they’re doing is essentially trying to cut off any remaining source of revenue for the government, to try to rattle the government into changing the regime,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior research fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

By choking oil revenue, the White House aims to isolate Mr Maduro’s government to the point where he is forced to resign or to spark an uprising from his disgruntled allies.

Indeed, oil tanker seizures are viewed by experts as the final act in Mr Trump’s chapter of maximum pressure that began with sanctions years before.

“The revenue that is coming in from oil is something that the regime has long since used as a tool to buy influence within the military and maintain what little the government still is able to produce in the form of oil,” Andrés Martínez-Fernández, senior policy analyst for Latin America at the Allison Centre for National Security, explained.

“It’s very quickly going to create instability to a new level within Venezuela and the regime.”

Turning allies

Relations between Washington and Caracas are at a nadir. The US and many of its allies consider Mr Maduro, who is currently serving his disputed third term, as a dictator.

Yet thanks to the export of Venezuela’s oil, Mr Maduro has formed a network of loyal military commanders and international allies who keep his reign afloat.

None have become more important than China, which is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil, taking roughly 80 per cent of its exports. Every day it imports around 746,000 barrels of oil.

Beijing has taken the oil not as a commercial import but as debt repayment towards an estimated $60bn in loans it has poured into Venezuelan oil projects.


The repayment deal suited both sides. Beijing secured oil while Maduro gained time and a friend on the international stage.

The blockade now threatens to derail the relationship and turn China against Mr Maduro as the ghost fleet of tankers stop arriving in Beijing’s ports.

If Venezuelan oil can no longer be delivered reliably, then Mr Maduro ceases to be an asset to China and becomes a legal liability as it chases repayment.

“Once shipments stop arriving at foreign ports, the debts start getting called in. And that’s going to have an immediate impact. Things are going to start breaking down quickly, physical infrastructure, if these payments don’t start to come in,” Mr Martínez-Fernández explained.

“It could get to a point where China says, ‘we would be better off being rid of this headache and being rid of Maduro, then by continuing any kind of active support.”

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Beijing has shown little sympathy to similar situations in the past. In Africa and Central Asia, the state has repeatedly distanced itself from leaders it no longer sees as reliable partners.

For Mr Trump, the blockade is another step in his plan dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine” by insiders, which aims to rid America’s backyard of Chinese influence.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation doctrine long believed to be a blueprint for his second term, calls it “re-hemisphering”. It calls for the capture of supply chains in the region as a requirement of US economic security.

In that sense, the blockade is not aimed at confronting China head on but at making Mr Maduro persona non grata. If the oil-for-debt deal collapses, Beijing may consider switching horses and abandoning him.

Also in the crosshairs is Havana, which has long relied on subsidised Venezuelan oil.

Cuba, which has been the subject of its own US blockade, has been receiving some 24,000 barrels of crude, gasoline and jet fuel per day from the regime.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s blockade is part of a plan dubbed the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ by insiders Credit: Reuters
Mr Sabatini said the blockade will be “catastrophic” for Cuba, a historic enemy of the US, and estimates that exports will drop dramatically.

“This is the moment that people like Marco Rubio [the secretary of state] and Cuban-American hardliners living in Florida have been waiting for,” he said.

“They’re trying to starve the government. By doing that, then they actually starve the people too.”

While China has poured millions into Venezuelan oil projects, Russia has been a key enabler in the shadows.

A Russian-linked “dark fleet” of tankers have also helped Mr Maduro avoid sanctions by shipping his oil around the globe. However, Putin, who has sought to curry favour with Mr Trump since his return to the Oval Office, may redirect the vessels, further isolating Mr Maduro.

Indeed, signs of Moscow’s shift in position are already there. Reports from late November suggested that Russia had initiated the evacuation of its citizens from the region.

Experts agree that Mr Trump is attempting to squeeze Mr Maduro economically while testing the resolve of his few remaining allies in the hope they turn against him.

“It does seem to be another way for the administration to ratchet up the pressure against the Maduro government,” said Brian Finucane, a former state department lawyer who is now senior adviser at the International Crisis Group.

Warfare

The formation of the armada, the largest US military presence in the region in decades, began with a series of strikes on boats the Trump administration claimed were ferrying illegal narcotics to the US.

For months, American forces have launched lethal strikes on small vessels skimming through international waters under the banner of anti-drug operations.

US navy and coastguard units have destroyed around 20 boats since early September, killing over 90 people.


Eight warships, including three destroyers, three amphibious assault ships, a cruiser and a smaller littoral combat ship now make up the largest US military presence in the region in decades.

They are joined by a squadron of F-35B Lightning II jets and a handful of Reaper drones, which are capable of flying long distances and carrying up to eight laser-guided missiles. B-2 bombers have also been spotted flying off the coast.

It has led many Venezuelans, and many Americans, to believe that Mr Trump is preparing for war.

The blockade, insiders suggest, is one of the lesser military escalations the president had been weighing with his cabinet in recent weeks.

Instead, they hope to turn the very cartels that military officials say are complicit in the smuggling of fentanyl to the US, against their leader by choking their cash flow, which is used to finance them.

For the armed forces, oil revenue is the glue that keeps the system intact. Generals control ports, customs and fuel distribution, making the military a pillar of Mr Maduro’s power.

As long as Mr Maduro can afford to pay his generals, their unfettered loyalty and in turn, his regime, will continue.


The same logic applies to Mr Maduro’s alleged relationship with organised crime. These groups rely on access to ports and laundering routes, all of which are sustained by the cash generated by oil sales.

“It doesn’t take us yet to the place where we’re going into Venezuelan territory and conducting military strikes. We’re still talking about operations in international waters,” Mr Martínez-Fernández said.

The formation of the armada, coupled with Mr Trump’s continued threat of land strikes, have led experts to believe that the blockade is part of a slide towards conflict.

Top military officials are said to have presented the US president with options for military intervention in the region which include land strikes. Other options reported to have been drawn up by the Pentagon include direct attacks on Mr Maduro’s security detail or operations to seize the country’s oil fields.

In each, Mr Trump is said to be against ideas that may place American troops at risk or could turn into an embarrassing failure.

Mr Trump and his cabinet have begun framing the blockade as a necessary intervention to reclaim “American oil”.

So what is stopping him? Perhaps his thirst for the Nobel Peace Prize and the potential blowback amongst his America First base if he started a war.

What happens next will be determined by Mr Trump’s blockade. If oil flow continues, Mr Maduro survives.

But if it is stopped, China may decide the debt is not worth collecting and his cash-poor lieutenants may turn against him.

The gamble in Washington is simple; regimes do not fall when they are attacked but when they are abandoned.