‘Maybe we’ll sell it … maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves,’ the president said.
President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 said that the United States will keep or sell the oil from tankers it seized off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks.
Asked what he planned to do with the oil, Trump told reporters: “We’re going to keep it. We’re keeping it.”
“Maybe we’ll sell it, maybe we’ll keep it, maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves,” he said during a press conference after announcing plans for a new fleet of large warships. “We’re keeping the ships also.”
The comments follow seizures of vessels and the oil they were carrying while sailing through waters off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has declared Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s regime a foreign terrorist organization.
On Dec. 10, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, seized the first vessel. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed at the time that the seizure warrant was executed for the crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
Bondi said in a post on X, “For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.”
Over the weekend, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a second oil tanker that U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said was last docked in Venezuela.
Noem said in a post on X on Dec. 20: “The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region. We will find you, and we will stop you.”
Trump then confirmed on Dec. 22 at the press conference in Mar-a-Lago that the United States is pursuing a third tanker.
“It’s moving along, and we’ll end up getting it,” he said of the tanker.
“We’re actually pursuing it, can you imagine? Because it came from the wrong location, it came out of Venezuela, and it was sanctioned,” the president told reporters.
