The Biden-era sanctions narrative is not what the U.S. officials emphasized this week. The new package, announced by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, targeted named ships and the companies registered to own them, with the designation placed under U.S. “blocked property” rules.
Treasury said the latest action focused on four tankers it described as part of a “shadow fleet” serving Maduro’s government. It also imposed sanctions on four firms operating in Venezuela’s oil sector, officials said, as part of a sustained campaign meant to restrict the flow of revenue and finance connected to the Maduro administration.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott framed the steps as continued pressure by the Trump administration. In a statement, Pigott said, “Today’s sanctions continue President Trump’s pressure campaign on Maduro and his cronies,” adding, “The Trump Administration is committed to disrupting the network that props up Maduro and his illegitimate regime.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent linked the sanctions to both energy revenue and drug trafficking. Bessent said the United States “will not allow the illegitimate Maduro regime to profit from exporting oil while it floods the United States with deadly drugs.”
In addition to the sanctions announced Wednesday, the U.S. described related operational actions around the same campaign. According to the account published with the sanctions announcement, U.S. forces have seized two oil tankers off Venezuela’s coast and are pursuing another, while U.S. officials also said they have conducted a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The sanctions package described Wednesday included specific vessel names and targeted ownership structures. The tankers named by U.S. authorities were Nord Star, Lunar Tide, Rosalind and Della, and Treasury said their registered ownership companies were included in the action as well.
U.S. officials described the broader effort as escalating over time. The report accompanying the sanctions said strikes announced Wednesday raised the death toll from attacks linked to those drug-smuggling operations to at least 110 people since early September. It also said the CIA carried out a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by drug cartels, describing it as the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil.
Under the sanctions rules, Treasury said the designations are meant to deny the firms and tankers access to any property or financial assets held in the United States. It said people, banks and financial institutions that violate that restriction could face sanctions or enforcement actions.
President Donald Trump has also described a wider approach that he says includes a “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of Venezuela, and he has demanded that Venezuela return assets seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, according to the account published with Wednesday’s announcement.