US President Donald Trump has defended his administration’s naval “blockade” of Venezuela, arguing the move is necessary to protect American interests and prevent unauthorised activity in the region.
"We're not gonna let anybody going through that shouldn't be going through. They took all of our energy rights—they took all of our oil from not that long ago ... they illegally took it," Trump told reporters.
His remarks came one day after he announced a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, branding the government of Nicolas Maduro a "foreign terrorist organisation."
Trump framed the action as a response to what he described as the illegal seizure of American energy assets, repeating long-standing grievances over Venezuela’s oil sector.
"Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had — they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching. But they’re not going to do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there," he said.
"As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back," Trump added.
According to Bloomberg News, Venezuela’s main oil storage facilities and tankers at its export terminals are quickly filling up and could reach maximum capacity in about 10 days.
