Trump directed U.S. forces to seize oil tanker Skipper off Venezuela, opening blockade campaign without congressional authorization

In a pre-dawn operation on December 10, 2025, U.S. forces launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and seized the crude-oil tanker Skipper in international waters shortly after it departed a Venezuelan port carrying an estimated 1–2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude. The operation involved two helicopters, U.S. Marines, special operations forces, and ten members of the Coast Guard's Maritime Security and Response Team, who fast-roped onto the vessel in the boarding. The Skipper had been under U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2022 for ties to an IRGC- and Hezbollah-linked smuggling network and was flying a false Guyanese flag at the time of seizure.

President Trump announced the seizure at a White House event, describing the cargo as "the largest one ever seized" and stating the U.S. would keep the oil. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Coast Guard — "with support from the Department of War" — had executed a civil-forfeiture warrant against a vessel used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.

The Skipper seizure was the opening enforcement act of what would become a declared U.S. oil blockade of Venezuela. President Trump formalized the blockade policy via a Truth Social post on December 16, and a second tanker, the Centuries, was seized on December 20. Venezuela's government condemned the December 10 operation as "a shameless robbery and an act of international piracy," asserting that the campaign was "always about our natural wealth, our oil." Venezuela requested an emergency UN Security Council session to contest the seizures. War-powers resolutions introduced in Congress seeking to constrain the Venezuela operations failed to advance.