Maduro tests Trump with “Plan B” oil tanker strategy

Venezuela is testing President Trump's blockade of sanctioned oil tankers by letting two crude-laden vessels motor out from the South American nation's ports — including one with a military escort. Neither tanker has been sanctioned by the U.S., so technically they're not running Trump's blockade.

This newest cat-and-mouse game between Trump and Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is heightening the tension in the Caribbean. Millions of barrels of oil are at stake — a military conflict seems likelier than ever.

"Maduro just does not know who he's messing with," a Trump adviser told Axios on Friday. A day earlier, Trump told NBC he wouldn't rule out going to war.

Maduro's backers lauded him for calling Trump's "bluff," but analysts saw the decision to dispatch the two tankers that aren't on the U.S. sanctions list as a way to appear defiant without challenging Trump too much. "This is Plan B by Maduro," said Samir Madani, co-founder of the firm Tanker Trackers, which monitors global oil shipping.

Madani said dozens of tankers on the sanctions list are remaining in Venezuelan waters to avoid capture by U.S. forces.

Last week, Trump escalated the operation by seizing a sanctioned vessel carrying about 1.9 million barrels of Venezuelan crude. On Tuesday he announced the blockade.

The two large unsanctioned tankers, which departed Venezuela on Thursday, now present an opportunity for Trump to escalate. His advisers say the vessels, bound for China, can be seized for three main reasons:

Trump declared Venezuela's government to be a "Foreign Terrorist Organization," or FTO, on Tuesday when he announced the blockade.

Trump on Nov. 24 slapped an FTO designation on the Cartel de los Soles, which the Department of Justice accused Maduro of running in 2020 when he was indicted for alleged cocaine trafficking.

Venezuela's oil ministry, known by its initials in Spanish as PDVSA, has been under U.S. sanctions since 2019.