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The US Treasury imposed new sanctions on Thursday against three of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s relatives as well as six companies shipping the South American country’s oil.
The move came as the White House said it will bring an oil tanker seized by American forces off the Venezuelan coast to a port in the United States, adding to growing fears of open conflict between the two countries. Washington took the tanker in a dramatic raid that saw US forces rappel from a helicopter onto the vessel in an operation that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said was aimed at Maduro’s “regime.”
Treasury officials said three nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, were being slapped with sanctions, labelling two of the men “narco-traffickers operating in Venezuela.”
“Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela for months with a major naval buildup in the region that has been accompanied by strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that have killed close to 90 people.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed support during a phone call with his ally Maduro, but with Moscow’s forces tied down in a grinding war in Ukraine, its capacity to provide aid is limited.
The Trump administration alleges that Maduro’s hold on power is illegitimate and that he stole Venezuela’s July 2024 election.
Maduro, the political heir to leftist leader Hugo Chavez, says the United States is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.
