Khaberni - On Wednesday, Venezuela raised its tone of defiance against the United States, asserting that its crude oil exports were unaffected by President Donald Trump's announcement yesterday of imposing a blockade on "sanctioned oil tankers" sailing from and to it.
Venezuela, which owns the largest proven oil reserves in the world, confirmed that oil export operations are proceeding as usual.
The national oil company "Petroleos de Venezuela" announced that the export operations of crude oil and its derivatives are proceeding normally, and that oil tankers continue to navigate "with complete safety".
Yesterday, Tuesday, Trump had announced "the imposition of a complete and comprehensive blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela."
He warned that "Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest fleet ever assembled in the history of South America," referring to the heavy US military presence in the Caribbean region, including the world's largest aircraft carrier.
Trump's announcement marks a new escalation in his ongoing campaign of military and economic pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Oil prices rose at the start of trading today in London following the news of the blockade, which comes a week after the US forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
The seizure of the tanker, which was carrying between one and two million barrels of crude oil headed to Cuba, marks a shift in Trump's campaign against Maduro.
In August last year, Trump ordered the largest military deployment in the Caribbean since the US invasion of Panama in 1989, justifying it as an effort to combat drug smuggling into the United States.
Caracas says that the drug interdiction operations are merely a cover for an attempt to overthrow Maduro and take control of Venezuela's oil.
Venezuela has been under a US oil embargo since 2019, forcing it to sell its production on the black market at much lower prices, especially to Asian countries.
The country produces one million barrels of oil per day, after production was around 3 million barrels per day at the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century.
