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The United States executed a bold seizure of a very large crude tanker off the coast of Venezuela on December 10, 2025, in an operation led by the U.S. Coast Guard with support from the Navy and federal law enforcement. President Trump announced the action publicly, releasing footage of Coast Guard teams fast-roping onto the deck and moving to secure the vessel and crew.
The tanker, identified by maritime analysts as the Skipper, was reportedly carrying roughly 1.8 to 2 million barrels of heavy Venezuelan crude, with paperwork showing a substantial portion destined for a Cuban state-run importer. U.S. officials have long sanctioned the ship for its alleged role in a shadow shipping network that aided Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, and investigators say the vessel used false transponder data to hide its movements.
When pressed about the operation, President Trump made it clear he wasn’t finished and refused to rule out additional actions, telling reporters the seizure was “for a very good reason” and hinting that “other things are happening” that Americans would learn about later. That refusal to telegraph weakness is exactly what a country under assault from narcoterrorist networks needs — decisive leadership that acts first and explains later.
Let’s be blunt: this is the kind of muscular enforcement of sanctions conservatives have demanded for years. By disrupting the black-market oil pipeline that props up Maduro and his terrorist partners, Washington struck at the financial lifeline of regimes that traffic drugs and sponsor violence, and that is a national-security victory for hardworking Americans. Those who scream about escalation should explain why they prefer paperwork and press releases over real results that keep our cities safer.
Predictably, Caracas and Havana have howled about piracy and theft, while some on the left rush to question the legality — a familiar chorus whenever American resolve upsets an authoritarian ally. But there’s a world of difference between defending American law and appeasing despots; the ship was sanctioned, the seizure was executed under a court warrant, and the oil is entering a legal forfeiture process that will be adjudicated in U.S. courts. Conservatives should side with the rule of law and national defense, not with regimes that fund chaos.
Back home, this show of strength arrives as Congress wrangles over the future of Obamacare subsidies and the federal budget, a fight that should remind Americans why fiscal sanity and national-security priorities matter. The administration has moved to tighten marketplace rules and restore program integrity while Republicans push to stop open-ended fiscal giveaways that reward bad actors and cushion overdependence on government handouts. If we can shut down oil smuggling and also restore accountability in entitlement spending, that’s a win for taxpayers and for the country.
Patriots should cheer an administration that acts to protect American interests in the hemisphere and refuses to be lectured by tyrants and their media enablers. Let Congress debate subsidies and process reforms, but don’t let obstructionists kneecap the very enforcement that chokes off the cash for narco-regimes and terror proxies. This is about energy security, law and order, and defending the American people — and on that, we should stand united and unapologetic.
