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‘UNQUESTIONABLY AN ACT OF WAR’: TRUMP DECLARES NAVAL BLOCKADE
AGAINST VENEZUELA
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Jake Johnson
December 17, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ “This is the Iraq War 2.0 with a South American flavor to it,”
warned one Democratic senator. _
An oil tanker called the Skipper in the southern Caribbean Sea was
seized by the United States on December 10th., Vantor, via Associated
Press
US President Donald Trump
[[link removed]] late Tuesday declared
a blockade on “all sanctioned oil
[[link removed]] tankers” approaching and
leaving Venezuela [[link removed]], a
major escalation in what’s widely seen as an accelerating march to
war with the South American country.
The “total and complete blockade,” Trump wrote
[[link removed]] on
his social media [[link removed]]
platform, will only be lifted when Venezuela returns to the US “all
of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from
us.”
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever
assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote, referring
to the massive US military
[[link removed]] buildup in the
Caribbean. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be
like nothing they have ever seen before.”
The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which has
mobilized its military
[[link removed]] in response to
the US president’s warmongering, denounced Trump’s comments as a
“grotesque threat” aimed at “stealing the riches that belong to
our homeland.”
The US-based anti-war group CodePink said in a statement that
“Trump’s assertion that Venezuela must ‘return’ oil, land, and
other assets to the United States
[[link removed]] exposes the true
objective” of his military campaign.
“Venezuela did not steal anything from the United States. What Trump
describes as ‘theft’ is Venezuela’s lawful assertion of
sovereignty over its own natural resources and its refusal to allow US
corporations to control its economy,” said CodePink. “A blockade,
a terrorist designation, and a military buildup are steps toward war.
Congress must act immediately to stop this escalation, and the
international community must reject this lawless threat.”
The announced naval blockade—an act of aggression
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under international law—came a week after the Trump administration
[[link removed]] seized an oil
tanker off the coast of Venezuela and made clear that it intends to
intercept more
[[link removed]].
US Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), one of the leaders of a war powers
resolution
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aimed at preventing the Trump administration from launching a war on
Venezuela without congressional approval, said Tuesday that “a naval
blockade is unquestionably an act of war.”
“A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do
not want,” Castro added, noting that a vote on his resolution is set
for Thursday. “Every member of the House of Representatives will
have the opportunity to decide if they support sending Americans into
yet another regime change war.”
(Note: The House vote on the resolution was held on Wednesday and
failed narrowly.)
Human rights [[link removed]]
organizations have accused the Republican-controlled Congress of
abdicating its responsibilities as the Trump administration takes
belligerent and illegal actions in international waters and against
Venezuela directly
[[link removed]], claiming
without evidence to be combating drug trafficking.
Last month, Senate Republicans—some of whom are publicly clamoring
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for the US military to overthrow Maduro’s government—voted down a
Venezuela war powers resolution. Two GOP
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and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined Democrats in supporting the
resolution.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center
for International Policy, wrote
[[link removed]] Tuesday that
“the White House [[link removed]]
minimized Republican ‘yes’ votes by promising that Trump would
seek Congress’ authorization before initiating hostilities against
Venezuela itself.”
“Trump today broke that promise to his own party’s lawmakers by
ordering a partial blockade on Venezuelan ships,” wrote Williams.
“A blockade, including a partial one, definitively constitutes an
act of war. Trump is starting a war against Venezuela without
congressional authorization.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego [[link removed]]
(D-Ariz.) warned
[[link removed]] in a
television appearance late Monday that members of the Trump
administration are “going to do everything they can to get us into
this war.”
“This is the Iraq War [[link removed]]
2.0 with a South American flavor to it,” he added. “This is
absolutely an effort to get us involved in a war in Venezuela.”
_Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams._
* Venezuela
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* Naval Blockade
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* Threat of War
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