Recent Items

US (So Far) Fails to Capture Third Venezuela Tanker. What Does the US Do to Restore Its Manhood? Allow Privateers via Letters of Marque?

Posted on by

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a much-ballyhooed US show of force, here the seizing of a tanker as part of a purported Venezuela blockade, was reported as having happened when it has not yet and may not come off, is US military machismo still intact? And if not, what does the US do next?

Mind you, the facts may change after this post goes live, but as of now, the last major media news report on the status of Bella-1, the third of three “sanctioned” Venezuela-serving oil tankers targeted for US seizure is still free. It is currently under Chinese ownership, apparently intended to carry a cargo from Venezuela to China. Bloomberg and perhaps other outlets had reported this third targeted tanker as boarded (the US had just captured another tanker over the weekend). But searches now show headlines (perhaps including corrected ones?) depicting the third vessel as still under pursuit. From the BBC in Trump says US is pursuing third oil tanker linked to Venezuela as of 9 hours ago; there are slightly older reports along these lines and nothing more current from big outlets:

The US Coast Guard is still pursuing a vessel in international waters near Venezuela as tensions in the region escalate, President Donald Trump has confirmed.

“We’re actually pursuing” the tanker, Trump said on Monday….

The current chase is related to a “sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion”, a US official told the BBC’s partner CBS News.

Late on Saturday the US Coast Guard approached an oil tanker, which US officials said was not flying a valid national flag, the New York Times reported.

Confirming the chase on Monday, President Trump said: “It’s moving along. We’ll end up getting it.”

The president said that the US would hold onto the seized oil and the vessels carrying it.

“We’re going to keep it… maybe we’ll sell it, maybe we’ll keep it”, he said.

“Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping it, we’re keeping the ships also.”

Trump has repeatedly had the bad habit of declaring victory when it has not been secured, witness a peace deal in Ukraine, between Thailand and Cambodia, obliteration of Iran’s nuclear program, a ceasefire in Gaza, victory versus the Houthis….the list goes on. So I will believe it when I see it.

Additional detail from Twitter:

A colleague here who has very extensive contacts across the Global South diplomatic community told me last evening that the Bella, as he put it “ran away” and has held off the US helicopters using the booms on the ship. The BBC story linked above happens to have a clip of the US seizing the second tanker and it shows helicopters being used to effect the capture, so that does offer corroboration of sorts. This contact also said about half the UK’s navy had been deployed to the Caribbean.

I am not even remotely a commercial maritime or a naval operations expert. However, it seems likely that if the Bella has evaded capture so far, it could get away. Helicopters do not have huge ranges. The US is not going to move whatever carrier it came from all that much to effect one seizure, since it still needs to maintain the blockade.

Now if the Bella-1 does indeed get away, what does the US do next? Presumably other bold captains, seeing that the US can simply be outrun, would similarly try ignoring US boarding efforts. After all, they too might succeed in escaping and the worst is that they are seized a bit later.

Experts are encouraged to weigh in. Might helicopter crews attempt small arms fire on ship personnel the next time? It was none other than Pete Hegseth who bragged about not being bound by tiresome rules and using “maximum lethality”. But if we were to try that, would that not justify a response by the ship’s crew? I have to imagine they do have some arms on board because pirates. How hard would it be to get off a shot that would take out a helicopter’s fragile rotors? But might the US actually welcome an incident like that because it could then justify deploying fighter jets? This sounds dangerously stoopid but that is this Administration’s hallmark.

But at least one account says the US abandoned pursuit even after media outlets were reporting the chase as still on:

The ship being empty is consistent with the claims that it was coming from Iran to Venezuela (which would otherwise seem nonsensical). Readers can advise if a tanker going that long distance a to pick up a cargo is unusual:

More nuggets:

Mind you, China has already complained about the US capture of Chinese ships transporting Venezuelan oil, but that was triggered by the grabbing of the second tanker, the Centuries, and not Bella-1.

But if you read a story from Reuters, republished on qCaptain, carefully, the US embargo is even more limited than it seems. The Administration did say it was limited only to “sanctioned” tankers and that does seem not to mean all tankers plying the Venezuela trade. From Reuters in Venezuela Sends Two Supertankers to China Despite U.S. Blockade Threat:

Venezuela on Thursday authorized two very large crude carriers (VLCC) to set sail for China, according to two sources familiar with Venezuela’s oil export operations, which would be only the second and third supertankers to depart the country since the U.S. seized a ship carrying Venezuelan oil last week.

The U.S. has said it would not allow vessels under sanction to leave Venezuelan waters. The departing tankers, each carrying around 1.9 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey heavy crude according to internal documents from state company PDVSA, are not on the U.S. current sanctions list…..

Of 75 oil tankers currently in Venezuela that are part of a “shadow fleet” of ships that typically navigate with transponders off to disguise their locations, around 38 have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury, according to data from TankerTrackers.com, updated this week. Of those, at least 15 are loaded with crude and fuel, it added.

So was this blockade intended to be leaky, and more intended for optics and face preservation as opposed to real strangulation? Or alternatively, that a partial choking of oil traffic would be enough to do real damage to the already weak Venezuela economy?

And on the Russia front:

Some in the US are pursuing another bright idea, of encouraging piracy by authoring letters of marque, supposedly to go after cartel-related ships. Since Trump designated Venezuela’s president Maduro to be a narco-terrorist, could that notion be stretched to include having privateers assist in the blockade?

The official scheme so far, courtesy the Washington Post:

As President Donald Trump ramps up tensions with Venezuela, U.S. lawmakers have introduced legislation to bring back a scourge of the high seas banished from Atlantic and Pacific waters since the age of sail: privateers, authorized by government-issued letters of marque to ply the trade of piracy in service of their country by targeting enemy ships.

These modern-day privateers, under a bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would receive authorization from Trump as private individuals to seize foreign vessels from anyone who “is a member of a cartel, a member of a cartel-linked organization, or a conspirator associated with a cartel or a cartel-linked organization.”

“Cartels have replaced corsairs in the modern era, but we can still give private American citizens and their businesses a stake in the fight against these murderous foreign criminals,” Lee, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement announcing the bill. “The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.”

And as we surmised, the intent does seem to enlist the help of dull normals in the Venezuela embargo effort:

The U.S. has amassed a vast array of warships, surveillance craft and aircraft in the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R. Ford — the Pentagon’s largest aircraft carrier. Thousands of soldiers, including elite Special Forces units, have also been deployed to the region.

Under Lee’s “Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025,” ordinary American citizens could join them in plying the seas for vessels to intercept.

There is mainly unseemly enthusiasm for this plan on Twitter:

But also a few cautionary views:

It really is too bad that the Administration is in a hissy with Somalis right now, since they seem to be world leaders in piracy and could probably lend a hand. But then again, we had designated not just ISIS but even specifically the then-named Al-Jolani as a terrorist until we decided we really really needed him and kissed and made up.

We’ve embedded the draft text of the bill at the end of the post.

After encouraging AI theft of intellectual property and money laundering and tax evasion via crypto, this new turn to lawlessness should come as no surprise. But it’s still depressing to see what the US has become.

00 Letters of Marque and Reprisal - Text
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Subscribe to Post Comments
11 comments

  2. The Rev Kev

    NC had a link a coupla years ago where someone was suggesting government-issued letters of marque and this appeared in a US Navy publication. Problem is where are those pirates going to get ships from to pursue oil tankers? You can hardly pick up a second-hand destroyer or a corvette on eBay. But there is another aspect. If the US is going to resort to using privateers, then I would expect security companies to deploy squads of troops on each tanker to repel them. They would have the legal right to fight off attacks by privateers including using things like ATGMs to take out the privateers. And what rights do privateers have on the open sea? I would imagine that they have the right to be hanged from the yard-arm as pirates. Those “letters of marque” technically say that they have the right to be treated as prisoners of war but perhaps they might adopt how the Trump regime has treated sailors of disabled boats at sea. And dead privateers, after all, tell no tales.

    Reply ↓
    1. vao

      I suggest that those who consider becoming a privateer under a letter of marque from the USA get some advice from a legal counsel well-versed in international law first.

      Because privateering has been deemed illegal under an international convention called the “Declaration of Paris” since 1856. The USA is one of the few countries that never signed the treaty. Interestingly, neither did China, Venezuela, and Persia/Iran — so capturing ships from those nations under a letter of marque might be admissible, but I would be exceedingly wary of trying to do the same with a Russian vessel, since Russia is one of the founding members of the Declaration of Paris…

      Reply ↓
    2. Yves Smith Post author

      If your memory of timing is correct, this was already in the works as of that link. Senator Lee bill published on the 19th or perhaps the 18th. The Post article was on the 19th. So this was an amplification perhaps pretending not to be.

      Reply ↓
    3. Adam1

      It seems totally nuts. It’s like giving Venezuela a license to arm it’s fleet and shot back. A few dead American privateers is going to be bad optics unless it’s supposed to be so that Trump gets his own Gulf of Tonkin to wide US Naval activity.

      Reply ↓
  3. JohnA

    Apropos the Russian cargo ship off the Swedish Baltic coast, it is seemingly very much a case of much ado about nothing. Swedish mainstream media went overboard at the weekend, with lurid tales of sanctioned vessels and that it ‘had’ (ie some point in the past) allegedy freighted North Korean weapons to Russia.
    The truth is more prosaic. The ship suffered an engine breakdown, dropped anchor and sent an emergency call to the Swedish coastguards. The coastguards, together with Swedish customs personnel boarded the ship (no protests from the crew) to perform a search. Swedish security services and Swedish Intelligence were also kept updated apparently.
    The Swedish prosecutor has now resolved not to pursue any further legal action and the ship has sailed away from Swedish waters. Another reds under the bed scare that turned out to be toothless.

    Reply ↓
  4. Wukchumni

    What if the Buckaneers were to recruit rap star Drake as their internet spokesperson, get the youts on board…

    Shades of Sir Francis, ya know.

    Reply ↓
  5. Valiant Johnson

    Goes right along with the idea I’ve been hearing and reading about bounty hunters assisting ICE and Border Patrol.

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *