Trump Orders Total Blockade on Venezuelan Oil Amid Terrorist Designation
Washington, Wednesday, 17 December 2025.
Designating the Venezuelan regime a foreign terrorist organization, President Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade” of oil tankers to sever funding for alleged drug terrorism and human trafficking.
Escalation of Maritime Enforcement
On Tuesday, December 16, 2025, President Trump intensified the administration’s pressure campaign against Caracas by ordering a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering or departing Venezuela [1][2]. The President declared that the South American nation is now “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” a maneuver aimed at forcing the return of assets allegedly stolen from the United States [1]. This blockade is explicitly designed to dismantle what the White House describes as a financial pipeline for “Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping,” effectively treating the regime’s primary revenue source as a criminal enterprise [1].
Targeting the Black Market and Economic Fallout
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett characterized these measures as a necessary crackdown on a “black market for oil” that sustains the Maduro administration [1]. The economic implications are severe for a nation already described by the Council on Foreign Relations as the “archetype of a failed petrostate,” where the economy has spiraled following the collapse of oil prices in 2014 [3]. These developments occur in the wake of Maduro’s disputed third-term inauguration on January 10, 2025, which prompted the U.S. to increase the reward for his arrest to $25 million and led the European Union to extend its own sanctions regime through 2027 [3].