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US RELIED ON ILLEGAL SANCTIONS TO SEIZE VENEZUELAN OIL TANKER  
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Marjorie Cohn
December 15, 2025
Truthout
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_ US armed forces’ seizure of the oil tanker constituted an
unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter. This is the
largest military buildup of US firepower in the Caribbean in decades.
If regime change succeeds in Venezuela, Cuba may be next _

Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro hold signs that translate to
"No more war for oil, the world demands it" during a rally against
U.S. military activity in the Caribbean, at the San Jose community in
the Petare neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela, , on December 13, 2025.
(Photo: Federico Parra / Agence France-Presse (AFP) // Truthout)

 

“We have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large
tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Donald
Trump told
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reporters on December 10, describing the escalation of his apparently
impending illegal war
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and regime change in Venezuela. Attorney General Pam Bondi
ceremoniously released a video clip of the U.S. Marines and National
Guard rappelling down from two helicopters onto the tanker.

In seizing the “Skipper,” the Trump administration relied on
sanctions the U.S. had imposed on the Venezuelan oil tanker. Bondi
said a seizure warrant was executed by the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI,
Pentagon, and Homeland Security Investigations. “For multiple years,
the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its
involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign
terrorist organizations,” she stated
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But those sanctions are illegal and cannot provide a lawful basis for
the U.S. to seize this vessel.

ONLY THE SECURITY COUNCIL IS AUTHORIZED TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS

Although claims in the corporate media that Venezuelan oil is subject
to “international sanctions
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are ubiquitous, nothing could be further from the truth.

When a country takes it upon itself to impose sanctions without
Security Council approval, they are called unilateral coercive
measures, which violate the UN Charter.

The U.S. government imposed unilateral coercive measures on the oil
tanker in 2022 for its alleged ties to Iran. But the UN Charter
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the Security Council to impose and enforce sanctions. Article 41
specifies:  The Security Council may decide what measures not
involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to
its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations
to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial
interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal,
telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the
severance of diplomatic relations.

“Under international law, we cannot lawfully enforce U.S. domestic
law in a foreign state’s territorial sea (12 nautical miles) or
contiguous zone (next 12 miles out, to total 24) without the coastal
state’s consent,” Jordan Paust, professor emeritus at University
of Houston Law Center and former captain in the U.S. Army JAG Corps,
told _Truthout.    _

The seizure of the oil tanker by the U.S. armed forces constituted an
unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter.

Francisco Rodriguez, senior research fellow at the Center for Economic
and Policy Research, concurs. “The US has no jurisdiction to enforce
unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory,” he
posted
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on X. “The seizure of ships in international waters to
extraterritorially enforce US sanctions is a dangerous precedent and a
violation of international law.”

“Nor can we lawfully do so on a foreign flag vessel there or on the
high seas without the flag state’s consent — all absent any
international legal justification under the law of war during an
actual ‘armed conflict’ or under Article 51 of the UN Charter in
case of an actual ‘armed attack,’” Paust added.

Although there are allegations that the Skipper was operating under a
false flag
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Trump made clear in his December 10 statement that it was in
Venezuela’s territorial sea or contiguous zone, not on “the high
seas.” Moreover, a senior military official told
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tanker had just left a port in Venezuela when it was seized.

THE SEIZURE WAS AN ILLEGAL ACT OF AGGRESSION

At first blush, it appears that the U.S. military committed piracy
when it seized the Skipper. But piracy is defined by Article 101 of
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
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as acts committed for private purposes by a private aircraft or ship.
State-sponsored or military actions can constitute acts of war or
violations of sovereignty, but not piracy.

The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force except in
self-defense after an armed attack under Article 51 or when approved
by the Security Council, neither of which was present before the
seizure of the Skipper. Nor was the U.S. engaged in armed conflict
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with Venezuela.

General Assembly Resolution 3314
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definition of “aggression,” which has been adopted by the Rome
Statute for the International Criminal Court: “Aggression is the use
of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial
integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other
manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”

The seizure of the oil tanker by the U.S. armed forces constituted an
unlawful use of force in violation of the UN Charter. It was therefore
an act of aggression. 

The administration is engaging in the largest military buildup of U.S.
firepower in the Caribbean in decades

This aggression comes on the heels of the Trump administration’s
extrajudicial executions
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(murders) of some 87 alleged drug traffickers on more than 20 small
boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. In all likelihood, the
administration doesn’t even know the identity of the victims, nor
has it provided any evidence that they were trafficking in narcotics.
Even if it had, due process requires arrest, not murder.

The U.S. has seized “sanctioned” oil in the past, during the first
Trump administration and the Biden administration as well. But,
according to
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_The New York Times_, it is not a common practice and “rarely
becomes a public spectacle.”

Meanwhile, the administration is engaging in the largest military
buildup
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of U.S. firepower in the Caribbean in decades, including the
deployment of the _USS Gerald R. Ford_, the biggest aircraft carrier
in the world. Trump declared a no-fly-zone
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over Venezuela. And the administration recently added significant
combat equipment to that already present in the region.

On December 11, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed additional
sanctions [[link removed]] on
the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, targeting his
relatives and six shipping companies operating in Venezuela’s oil
sector.

IF U.S. REGIME CHANGE SUCCEEDS IN VENEZUELA, CUBA MAY BE NEXT

Trump has clearly stated his intention to attack
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Venezuela, and his administration has signaled that it aims to change
Venezuela’s regime
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with opposition leader María Corina Machado waiting in the wings.
Hours after it seized the Skipper, the U.S. helped
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Machado leave Venezuela and travel to Norway to receive the Nobel
“Peace” Prize.

Maduro called
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the seizure of the tanker what it really is: “It has always been
about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that
belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.” Venezuela has the
largest proven oil reserves in the world.

This seizure could be the first act in the U.S. imposition of an oil
blockade on Venezuela. Such a blockade “would shut down the entire
economy,” former Biden administration Latin America adviser Juan
González told the _Guardian_
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“Because Venezuela is so dependent on oil, they could not resist
that very long,” retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel and senior
adviser at think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies
Mark Cancian, told the _BBC_
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It would be “an act of war.”

The oil tanker had offloaded
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a small amount of its oil to a smaller ship headed for Cuba and then
proceeded east toward Asia before the tanker was seized by the U.S.
That seizure “is part of the US escalation aimed at hampering
Venezuela’s legitimate right to freely use and trade its natural
resources with other nations, including the supplies of hydrocarbons
to Cuba,” the Cuban Foreign Ministry said
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in a statement.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, architect of Trump’s Venezuela
regime change strategy, has long had the Cuban government in his
sights
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“Their theory of change involves cutting off all support to Cuba,”
González told _The New York Times_. “Under this approach, once
Venezuela goes, Cuba will follow.”

For decades, Cuba has suffered under unilateral coercive measures in
the form of an economic blockade, which was also imposed by the U.S.
in violation of the UN Charter.

Forcible regime change is illegal. The UN Charter prohibits the use of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of
another state. Likewise, the Charter of the Organization of American
States forbids any state from intervening in the internal or external
affairs of another state. And the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights guarantees the right to self-determination.

Trump’s new National Security Strategy contains the “Trump
Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, signaling a return
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to U.S. military interventions in Latin America. The strategy
states: 

We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably
stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass
migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments
cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other
transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that
remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets,
and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our
continued access to key strategic locations.

Washington’s brutal anti-immigrant policies and false accusations
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that Venezuela is sending drugs to harm the U.S. are consistent with
this strategy. And implicit in the strategy is the key goal of U.S.
access to Venezuela’s rich oil deposits.

_[MARJORIE COHN is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of
Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and past
president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national
advisory boards of Veterans For Peace and Assange Defense, and is a
member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic
Lawyers and the U.S. representative to the continental advisory
council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books
include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical
Issues.]_

_This article is licensed under __Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)_
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free to share and republish under the terms of the license._

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* Venezuela
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* Nicolas Maduro
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* Caribbean
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* Sanctions
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* Oil
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* war powers
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* war powers resolution
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* U.S. military policy
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* U.S. foreign policy
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* US policy towards Latin America
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* Gun Boat Diplomacy
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* Narco-Terrorism
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* Pete Hegseth
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* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* Cuba
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* US-Cuba relations
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