Key Highlights
- Newsroom ReviewedA sanctioned oil tanker pursued by US forces turned away from Venezuela and retreated out into the Atlantic Ocean, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration continues a blockade piling pressure on Caracas.
- The US Coast Guard encountered the ship, Bella 1, amid bad weather near Barbados on Sunday and instructed the tanker to move to calmer waters for safe boarding, according to the people familiar with the operation, who asked not to be identified without permission to speak publicly.
- The ship instead sailed toward the Atlantic Ocean, the people said, with one person adding that US officials expect it won’t return.
- The tanker was not hauling oil at the time it turned away from Venezuela, one person said. A US official said the Coast Guard has not given up its pursuit of the tanker, and that there is a judicial seizure order on it. The tanker crew’s decision to flee away from closely-monitored Venezuelan waters shows how a US blockade ordered by President Donald Trump is disrupting the South American nation’s oil exports, most of which normally go to China.
- The operation is part of the largest US military deployment to the region in decades, which the Trump administration ordered to stop drug cartels and put pressure on Venezuela’s government.
