I find the Trump Administration’s seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker deeply troubling. Even if one accepts the administration’s stated justifications at face value, the action is strategically unsound, legally questionable, and likely to further poison our already strained relations with other countries in the hemisphere.
The United States helped establish the international process for resolving disputes of this sort, and we have treaty obligations under the UN Charter and the Inter-American system to bring grievances that cannot be resolved through diplomacy or economic sanctions before the United Nations Security Council. We should abide by the rules we expect others to follow.
Actions like this also set a dangerous precedent. If the United States asserts a right to seize foreign vessels unilaterally, do we want China—or Russia—to behave in the same way?
Most importantly, we should never undertake military action against Venezuela without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Anything less would violate both our constitutional structure and the norms we claim to champion.
Congress has not passed an Act of War since 1941. They are not going to pass one now, an we will get yet another unconstitutional war.
The so-called “shadow tankers” are entirely legal, legitimate commercial operators. US sanctions are illegal under the UN Charter, so these seizures are simple piracy. They are a fitting match to the murders of at least 80 people in a dozen or so small boats.
The US is a rogue, terrorist, pariah state. We are headed for a really big war that might go nuclear, and will result in a disastrous defeat for us.
I voted for the self-proclaimed peace candidate. I got the continuation and intensification two wars in Ukraine and Somalia, three new wars with Gaza, Iran, and Yemen, and the real possibility of a very large guerrilla war in Venezuela. We will lose all six wars.