Chinese officials on Dec. 22 condemned [13] the US seizure of oil tankers headed from Venezuela to the People's Republic of China, calling the acts a "serious violation of international law."
"Venezuela has the right to independently develop mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press conference. Jian stated that China opposes unilateral enforcement of sanctions that lack "basis in international law" and infringe on the sovereignty of other nations.
US troops boarded and seized the Panama-flagged tanker Centuries on Dec. 20. According to the White House, while the vessel was not on the US Treasury's sanctioned vessel list, it carried [14] state-owned oil as part of Venezuela's "shadow fleet."
US President Donald Trump on TruthSocial wrote [17] that the “Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION" (upper case in original), and has claimed it uses oil resources to fund human trafficking, drug smuggling, murder, and kidnapping. Trump has relied on this rationale to establish a "total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers" to and from Venezuela. In fact, it is the so-called Cartel of the Suns [18], supposedly linked to the Venezuelan government, that has been designated [19] a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO) by the US State Department.
18 U.S. Code § 981 [20] gives the federal government the authority to seize assets “of any individual, entity, or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating” a crime of terrorism.
This was the second Venezuela-linked oil tanker the US has recently seized. On Dec. 10, the US seized [15] the M/T Skipper, which the Justice Department claimed was "being used in an oil shipping network supporting Hizballah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force," two US-designated FTOs.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has condemned [21] the seizures, calling the US actions "piracy," and claiming that Trump's security justifications are a pretense to capture Venezuelan oil.
Tensions continue to rise between the US and Venezuela. The US has struck [22] over twenty boats allegedly smuggling drugs from Venezuela (or Colombia) in recent months, killing over 80 people. The US targeted [23] another Panama-flagged Venezuela-linked tanker for pursuit in Caribbean waters Monday after it failed to stop following US Coast Guard attempts to board it. That tanker, the Bella 1, has also been named [24] by the Treasury Department as “carrying sanctioned cargo” on behalf of designated FTOs. It reportedly escaped pursuit into the Atlantic Ocean.
From JURIST [25], Dec. 23. Used with permission. Internal links added.
