US Seizes Venezuela Tanker While Importing Record Venezuelan Oil
According to the NY Times , US forces have again interdicted a tanker linked to Venezuela, parading it as a win against Maduro's regime. This brings the grand total to six vessels. Yet, what the mainstream media conveniently omits is that the U.S. has simultaneously become a top importer of Venezuelan crude oil, with imports skyrocketing from zero in 2022 to over 60,000 barrels per day by late
2023, following 'sanctions relief' for Chevron. (Source: Reuters, EIA data) One day, Venezuela is a pariah state; the next, its oil fills American refineries. It makes you wonder what, exactly, these tanker seizures are truly achieving beyond performance art. Is the U.S. government playing a geopolitical game of 'catch me if you can' with itself, sanctioning Venezuela in one breath and signing
purchase agreements in the next? This 'tough on crime' rhetoric rings hollow when the White House is simultaneously filling its tanks with the very product it claims to be intercepting. One might question the coherence of a foreign policy that sanctions with one hand while buying with the other. Perhaps it's just a complex strategy to prevent oil from reaching… someone else?