US President Donald Trump announced that his country's armed forces have seized an oil tanker off Venezuela, Reuters reported.
The agency notes that as a result, oil prices have risen, and tensions between Washington and Caracas, which are already high, have sharply escalated.
"We just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela - a big tanker, very big, actually the biggest ever" Trump said yesterday. The US president, who is pressuring his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro to step down, added significantly that he expects "other things to happen".
Asked what would happen to the oil on board the seized tanker, Trump replied: "We'll keep it, I guess."
The Venezuelan government condemned the seizure of the ship as "brazen theft".
According to CBS, the tanker "Skipper" was seized, on which the US imposed sanctions in 2022 for alleged ties to Iran and the Lebanese movement "Hezbollah" it supports. The Trump administration is considering more such actions, wrote in "Ex" American media reporter quoted by Reuters.