We got another one.
On Saturday, the news broke of another American seizure of a sanctioned ship off the coast of Venezuela. If this keeps up, America is going to see a significant expansion of the country's merchant fleet - assuming these ships aren't total pieces of junk, in which case, lots of raw material for razor blades.
🚨 BREAKING: The United States Coast Guard is CURRENTLY interdicting a sanctioned vessel off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, the second sanctioned vessel to be seized - Reuters
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 20, 2025
HUGE FAFO CONTINUES!
Welcome to the Trump Doctrine. We're taking our hemisphere BACK. pic.twitter.com/ilgQ2bRNWM
The Reuters piece mentioned in this X post has a little more detail.
The United States is interdicting and seizing a vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Saturday, a move that comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a "blockade" of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
This would mark the second time in recent weeks that the United States has seized a tanker near Venezuela and comes amid a large U.S. military build-up in the region.
The officials, who were speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not say where the operation was taking place but added the Coast Guard was in the lead.
The Coast Guard and Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As we have mentioned in the past, these operations aren't military strikes, like the ongoing campaign of detonating drug-smuggling speedboats. While that operation is a good thing, proving once more that there is no problem that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives, that is the province of the armed forces. This latest ship seizure, if it follows the pattern of the first, is a law-enforcement matter. The first ship was seized under a legally issued warrant, and that operation included military assets but was carried out as a matter of law.
Presumably, this latest ship is being seized under a warrant as well, as well as being in accordance with the president's recently-announced blockade on Venezuelan ports. The Trump administration is determined to put the squeeze on El Presidente Maduro, and that's worth doing, every day and twice on Sunday.
Read More: Terrorism Law Now Unleashed: Feds Unseal Tanker Seizure Order
Upping the Ante: Trump Orders 'Total and Complete Blockade' of Sanctioned Venezuelan Oil Tankers
The Reuters piece also includes this tidbit:
Since the U.S. imposed energy sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, traders and refiners buying Venezuelan oil have resorted to a "shadow fleet" of tankers that disguise their location and to vessels sanctioned for transporting Iranian or Russian oil.
The dark or shadow fleet is considered exposed to possible punitive measures from the U.S., shipping analysts have said.
Indeed, that's what's happening. The first ship so taken, the Skipper, was part of this dark fleet. This latest ship (could it possibly be the Gilligan?) may well be part of that same dark fleet; at this point, we just don't know for sure.
And, of course:
Venezuela's oil ministry and state oil company PDVSA did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
You don't say.
This is a developing story. Stay tuned.
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