US Pursues Third Oil Tanker, Ramping Up Pressure on Venezuela

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The US Coast Guard’s pursuit of a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela has intensified a blockade that the Trump administration hopes will cut off a vital economic lifeline and isolate the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

US forces chased the US-sanctioned Bella 1 on Sunday as it was en route to Venezuela. They boarded Centuries, a ship owned by a Hong Kong-based entity, on Saturday — the first non-sanctioned vessel to be targeted. Another very large crude carrier, the Skipper, was intercepted on Dec. 10.

The moves on three separate vessels represent the most concerted attempt to date to sever the financial links sustaining a government that Washington says is led by a drug-trafficking cartel, and one that it has also recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Maduro has so far withstood the onslaught, but the blockade is beginning to limit hard currency and to hurt an already battered economy.

On this edition, Joe speaks with: • Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg US National Security Team Lead • Nathan Dean, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US Policy Analyst to preview Congress for 2026 • Joseph Majkut, Director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies • Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center and Bloomberg Politics Contributor & Greta Joynes, Policy Director at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Republican Strategist on the latest fallout from the release of the Epstein files See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.