US Coast Guard Seizes Second Venezuela-Linked Tanker After Trump’s ‘Total Blockade’ Order

Washington’s use of a naval cordon to squeeze Caracas echoes the 1962 "quarantine" of Cuba and even the 1941 U.S. oil embargo on Japan—economic levers enforced by warships that risk morphing into shooting wars. For over a century U.S. policy toward Latin America has oscillated between non-intervention pledges and resource-driven interventions, from the 1914 occupation of Veracruz to the 2003 Iraq invasion justified in part by oil security. Trump’s unprecedented Caribbean armada extends the post-Cold-War trend of weaponizing sanctions and extraterritorial law enforcement on the high seas, blurring lines between policing and warfare. Whether this seizure becomes a footnote or a casus belli will hinge on how far each side pushes; on a 100-year horizon it tests the durability of international norms against unilateral blockades and signals how resource competition and sanction regimes could shape maritime order in the mid-21st century.