Trump seems to have started 2026 with a geopolitical analogue to his presidency-opening “flood the zone” flurry of executive orders. Following his kidnapping of Venezuela’s president Maduro and his wife Celia Flores, the Trump team has announced audacious plans to heist Venezuelan oil by controlling its sale, having the proceeds deposited in American banks, and then purportedly using the funds to buy American goods. As we will discussed, he has also escalated on the piracy front by capturing two tankers, the one the errant Bella-1, reflagged as the Russia Marinera. the second owned vessel M/T Sophia, allegedly carrying oil to China. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the Russian crew members of the Marinera will be prosecuted. As we’ll unpack, Senator Lindsay Graham has also said Trump has agreed to sign the so-called maximum pressure sanctions on countries buying Russian oil, more formally called the Sanctioning of Russia Act 2025.1 To complete this picture of violence, on the domestic front, Trump is defending the murder-by-ICE of award-winning poet and Minneapolis resident Renee Good, where it appears ICE even barred medics from treating her after having shot her in the face.
And from the Independent:
U.S. officials say the Trump administration plans to control Venezuela’s oil indefinitely in order to force the country to act in America’s interests.
Energy Secretary Wright said the U.S. would market stored Venezuelan oil first and then sell future production indefinitely, with revenues deposited into accounts controlled by the U.S.President Donald Trump has also announced that Venezuela will only purchase “American-made” products with the money made from its oil deal with America.
According to the New York Times:
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, asked whether and how the U.S. will “run” Venezuela as President Trump has vowed, told reporters that the Trump administration was “in close coordination with” Venezuela’s interim authorities, and that “their decisions are going to be dictated by the United States of America.
However, as least so far, Venezuela is not on board. From the same Times live blog:
Later Monday, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, confirmed for the first time that it was negotiating the “sale” of crude oil to the United States. It said in a statement on social media that it was using “frameworks similar to those currently in effect with international companies, such as Chevron, and is based on a strictly commercial transaction.”
That means Venezuela’s position is that it is to be paid just as it was when Biden lifted the sanctions on Venezuela to allow the US to obtain heavy crude after its sanctions on Russia cut of that supply.
Consistent with that stance:
Venezuelan Acting Pres. Delcy Rodriguez: Venezuela was open to sell oil to USA but Trump demanded it for free! pic.twitter.com/EFtwuV4ByJ
— Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) January 7, 2026
Note that if I have the sequence of events right, the meeting with ambassadors looks to be Venezuela thumbing its nose at yet another Trump Administration diktat:
Trump's Impositions Will Implode Venezuela
The Trump administration has told Venezuela that it must expel representatives from China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba and sever economic ties with them before being allowed to increase oil production.
In addition, he warned that 30 to 50… pic.twitter.com/u4gD1eYKiH
— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) January 7, 2026
As the lawyers say, possession is nine-tenths of the law. There may be oil loaded on tankers contracted by Chevron at the docks where the oil has not yet been paid for where Venezuela may decide not to block their departure.2 But Chevron, right after the Maduro capture, issued a statement that effectively said it was mindful of the risk to the security of its 3,000 employees in Venezuela. They would be subject to arrest and prosecution if Chevron were to violate its agreements with the Venezuela government and make off with the oil.
And pray tell, how does oil not yet on board get loaded for export without the cooperation of Venezuela dock workers? Staff at the well heads? Venezuela has plenty of cards if it chooses to play them.
Remarks like this don’t create confidence in how far the Administration has thought things through:
Wait, they think that oil is actually shipped in barrels? The stagecoach is ready… pic.twitter.com/4aOdXw1l3y
— Peter Berezin (@PeterBerezinBCA) January 7, 2026
Congress is not keen about Trump’s planned heist either. From the New York Times again:
President Trump’s declaration that he would personally control the proceeds from oil produced in Venezuela drew instant condemnation on Wednesday from Democrats in Congress who noted that the president had no constitutional authority for such an undertaking.
“The president cannot grab Venezuela’s oil for his own slush fund. Period,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said on Wednesday.
But power-drunk Trump will, if his oil-theft gambit manages to succeed, depict the proceeds as justifying his planned massive military expansion:
On the tanker front, the US has captured both the empty Marinera and the M/T Sophia. The apparent path of the Marinera:
You can see this was a long way from Venezula. The cost of the capture almost certainly exceeded the value of the ship.
Simplicius points out that the US is denying that the ship had been reflagged and was Russian:
Meanwhile, this statement from the US indicates the US does not consider the ship to be Russian:
The USA states that it does not consider the tanker “Marinera” to belong to Russia and that it does not belong to any country. The USA continues to claim that it believes it has the right to seize all tankers involved in transporting Venezuelan oil.
Armchair Warlord cautions against making too much of the seizure of the Marinera:
As much as certain people want an instant, decisive response from the Russians to this clear insult by the United States in seizing a Russian-flagged tanker, it’s worth taking a deep breath and applying some context.
Some thoughts:⬇️
1. It’s important to not attach a greater… pic.twitter.com/gNL5UEctHr
— Armchair Warlord (@ArmchairW) January 8, 2026
However, this is a clear violation of what is left of international law as well as laws of the sea. From RT:
US military breached UN maritime convention – Russia READ MORE: US military breached UN maritime convention – Russia
Moscow has acknowledged the capture of the vessel. The country’s Transport Ministry stated that the Marinera had received a temporary permit to fly the national flag on December 24. The ministry accused the US of violating the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which ensures freedom of navigation in international waters.
The US intends to prosecute the crew:
The crew of the hijacked vessel will be tried for violating federal laws.
The United Kingdom participated in the seizure of the Russian tanker.The NATO partner used its aircraft for tracking and provided the US Air Force with its air bases. pic.twitter.com/IN1BoT8d7d
— big ben (@alternative_war) January 7, 2026
The official response leaves open the possibility that Russia citizens were on board and thus would be included in the prosecution:
BREAKING🚨 ‼️🇺🇸🇷🇺🇻🇪 – The US seized a Russian-flagged tanker Mainera (Bella 1) linked to Venezuela on Jan 7, 2026, after pursuit in North Atlantic. Russia condemned it and demanded humane treatment for crew. pic.twitter.com/TsYVpMgHaY
— Rebel_Warriors (@Rebel_Warriors) January 7, 2026
On the “maximum pressure” sanctions front:
After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he greenlit the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that I have been working on for months with Senator Blumenthal and many others.
This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 7, 2026
Keep in mind that the bill, as you can see from the summary in the footnotes, does not obligate Trump to impose the sanctions but gives him the option. But Trump has effectively chambered a round. The South Florida Reporter summarized the intent:
In a significant shift toward “maximum pressure” on Moscow, President Donald Trump has officially “greenlit” a bipartisan sanctions package designed to economically cripple the Russian Federation. The move comes as the administration expresses growing frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s perceived lack of commitment to peace negotiations aimed at ending the four-year-old war in Ukraine….
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk,” Graham said in a statement. “This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine.”
The legislation is among the most severe in U.S. history, proposing a 500% tariff on all goods and services imported from Russia. Crucially, it empowers the White House to impose secondary sanctions on third-party nations—specifically targeting major economies like China, India, and Brazil—to incentivize them to cease energy trades that currently provide the financial lifeblood for Russia’s military operations.
Recall that Trump tried imposing secondary sanctions for Russian oil on India and largely retreated. Despite some initial press reports otherwise, India has not reduced its Russian oil purchases. It seems inconceivable that Trump would be so self destructive as to impose them against China. China has already demonstrated it holds the whip hand from its responses to earlier Trump tariff escalations. Neither China nor India have pulled out their heavy weapons of threatening to cut pharmaceutical imports, which are clearly essential to Americans. But Trump seems to be so high on his sense of power that he may hazard secondary sanctions on certain categories of good out of an inability to contain himself.
Meanwhile on the Greenland front, Denmark is readying itself to be the mouse that roared:
A colleague who has a daughter who is a dual citizen of Denmark reports that Denmark has instated conscription, including of women.
But would Trump deploy the secondary sanctions against Europe as a way to block threat display with respect to annexing Greenland? The Guardian reported that Europe is still importing Russian LNG:
European governments have been accused of fuelling Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine as new data shows the Kremlin earned an estimated €7.2bn (£6.2bn) last year from exporting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the EU.
Brussels has pledged to ban imports of Russian LNG – natural gas that is supercooled to make it easier to transport – by 2027 but an analysis suggests there is yet to be any letup in the vast quantities being received at European ports from Russia’s LNG complex on the Yamal peninsula in Siberia.
More than 15m tonnes of Yamal LNG was transported through the Arctic ice to reach EU terminals in 2025, according to the human rights NGO Urgewald, earning the Kremlin an estimated €7.2bn.
While Europe has cut supplies of pipeline gas from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU’s share of global shipments from Yamal increased in the last year, the fourth of the war in Ukraine, rising to 76.1%, up from 75.4% in 2024, the report said.
The imports remain legal and the EU has been reluctant to ban Russian shipments of LNG, particularly due to the dependency of central and eastern Europe on the energy source.
In further geopolitically anti-social behavior, Trump pulled out of a raft of international organizations yesterday:
Bloomberg points out that leaving 31 UN bodies will put them at “fiscal peril“.
And to round out this sorry list, a very brief take on the ICE murder in Minneapolis. Local officials are clearly up in arms; the police gave a briefing and released a video clearly showing the ICE officials shooting at least twice at the driver as she was trying to depart. And yes, that is undeniably illegal, or supposed to be.
This is one of the best, frame-by-frame breakdowns here by Brenna Perez of the Minnesota ICE shooting, proving without a doubt that ICE agent wasn't in danger, and he murdered Renee Good.
Make sure everyone sees it.pic.twitter.com/qtWzy2ywdA
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) January 8, 2026
And a video of medics being denied access:
We pointed out yesterday that Daniel Davis on his Deep Dive show compared the timid European responses to Trump’s planned Greenland grab to appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s. Alexander Mercouris made a similar observation yesterday. Will Russia or China man up? Trump does go TACO when met with serious resistance, but someone needs to show some spine, or perhaps even steel.
_____
Introduced in Senate (04/01/2025)
Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025
This bill imposes penalties on certain persons (individuals and entities) if the President determines that the Russian government or a person acting at Russia’s direction is involved with (1) refusing to negotiate a peace agreement with Ukraine; (2) violating a negotiated peace agreement; (3) initiating another invasion of Ukraine; or (4) overthrowing, dismantling, or seeking to subvert the Ukrainian government.
If the President makes such a determination, the bill requires certain actions including
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the President must impose visa- and property-blocking sanctions on specified persons such as the Russian president, certain Russian military commanders, and any foreign person that knowingly provides defense items to the Russian armed forces;
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the President must increase the rate of duty on all goods and services imported from Russia into the United States to at least 500% relative to the value of such goods and services;
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the President must increase the rate of duty on all goods and services imported into the United States from countries that knowingly engage in the exchange of Russian-origin uranium and petroleum products to at least 500% relative to the value of such goods and services;
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the Department of the Treasury must impose property-blocking sanctions on any financial institution organized under Russian law and owned wholly or partly by Russia, and any financial institution that engages in transactions with those entities; and
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the Department of Commerce must prohibit the export, reexport, or in-country transfer to or in Russia of any U.S.-produced energy or energy product.
2 Over my pay grade, but would it not be possible to damage their propellers?
This is reaching heights of absurdity. The US has not, in fact, taken over Venezuala or ousted the government, and has no boots on the ground. It will not be possible to carry out these directives, or seize oil, or force the buying of American goods absent far, far deeper control. If the current Venezualan government goes along with this, it will be ousted by the public, or the military, or both.
I am not convinced there is a US plan here beyond further chaos. Chaos for its own sake, for the high it provides to the political class. Certainly, these demands and their effects destabilize Venezuela further, and make to further amenable to future US takeovers, but the chaos itself will become an unmanageable problem. Venezuela turning into a second Iraq, so close to the US Gulf coast, is an insane proposition.
I’m going with the drug addict interpretation. Washington is chasing cheap political highs, heedless of the costs. And every higher hits are needed to keep chasing the high. Over time the body and mind simply fall apart.
My working theory is that the illegal oil grab is an attempt to circumvent Article 1 of the US Constitution.
Only Congress can appropriate funds. Trump is hamstrung by this. Stealing someone else’s natural resources and selling them in the open market might be his plan to get around Article 1 and also avoid legal scrutiny. I can see a Congress-critter filing suit and getting an injunction, though … paging Thomas Massie.
Interesting thought. Shades of Iran-Contra. Hope some congresspeople are keeping impeachment and indictment drafts updated for when they take back Congress. Oh, what am I saying. Of course they won’t, can’t, wouldn’t.
They wouldn’t dare impeach any president for any imperial illegality because they all hope to do it themselves some day. Trump should have been gone the first term for the Suleimani assassination or the first attempted Venezuelan coup, ridiculous as that was. But they chose to impeach him for nonsense instead.
Oil or Israel or Cuba, is the chaos and cost worth the outcome? A few grifters and hangers on in the administration may profit, but the US state and population will be paying the costs . There doesn’t appear to be any serious upsides here beyond the highs from the events themselves.
In order to sell something, you generally have to take possession or establish ownership.
No idea on how much Vz oil is just sitting on a dock in barrels waiting to be grabbed, but I doubt it is any sort of significant amount that could raise the sort of cash Trump wants. More likely, most of the oil is underground and requires significant investments just to get it out, given the dilapidated condition of the Venezuelan oil industry.
The angry hedge funds looking to recoup their losses on Venezuelan bonds are another spanner in the works. They’ll want to lay claim to some of the oil revenues.
To your point on grifters:
Perhaps Blackrock or some other bank will come to the rescue and start selling derivatives – an interest in future Venezuelan oil revenues, sort of like the vaporous ‘rare erfs’ fund that was proposed to fund Ukraine.
Another thought – this is Trump’s backup plan for when the SCOTUS declares the tariffs illegal and he has to pay back all the money.
See the intro to the tweet in the post. It is not in barrels.
Agree – my point was an attempt at sarcasm. Misunderstanding that barrels are simply a unit of measurement, and not an actual transport mechanism in 2026, is the sort of sloppy thinking we usually get from Trump admin officials.
Sorry! My sense of humor is diminished on topics like this.
More qualified commenters are invited to write on this, but I recall that the Bush 2 scheme to sell Iraqi oil to fund the occupation failed because of the occupier’s lack of legal title to the oil, so it was not saleable on the market. If Trump can get possession of “the barrels,” how can he get money for them?
In a suitcase. Trump’s plan is to exchange barrels of oil for suitcases of cash, somewhere in the Arizona desert.
Maybe he and Rubio have worked out a modus vivendi where they join forces to take over various Three Letter Agency associated drug and weapons smuggling operations to unify the dark and light budgets under 2.0rump.
Trump can’t use money in CIA “bank”?
By the time he TACO, everyone will forget…
From some on the ground sources interviewed by Justin Podur, it seems like the accusations of high treachery and general chaos are mostly unfounded. In fact, from what one gathers Venezuela is the best it has been in years, given it seems like the administration has managed to find ways to overcome the sanctions problem. Now, I cannot vouch for these opinions as being completely accurate insofar as I am not in Venezuela; but after the past few days of seeing wanton speculation all around I would be cautious when predicting how events will unfold.
I think that this current affair will be much like everything else with Trump. He makes grandiose statements and grandiose promises followed by little real action.
The exception is Greenland. He may just seize it. He knows Europe will do nothing.
The backlash to seizure could be considerable. The Global South will realize that Trump is out of control and they will realize that they must unite for their own security.
I see the latest from him, and often wonder when the insanity of most of my life is past and it can be seen from without if history won’t find that Lindsay Graham hasn’t been some long term toxic infection helping to instigate and fuel most of the worst choices and policies of American imperialism. He really is multiple treatment resistant STDs rolled into one obnoxious package.
Trump’s global strategy is clear; it’s my way or the highway! Such a great chess player. LOL
I have seen more and more commentaries lately that depict our present government behavior under Trump’s leadership as organized crime. Al Capone supposedly said that you can get more with kind word and a .38 than you can with just a kind word. Trump is doing a pretty good impersonation of a capo di tutti i capi IMHO. It’s a combination of the Art of the Deal and Make Them an Offer They Can’t Refuse.
Machiavelli said (using much nicer words) you should never just rely on the .38 (actual quote having to do with fear better than love, but hate being terrible). Trump and his cronies are making the common mistake of pseudo Machiavellians who think themselves clever: earning hate and, worse, contempt, thinking they are earning fear. And they are doing it on an unprecedentedly huge scale.
Better late than never with those commentaries I suppose. Of course, blowing up allies’ pipelines and greenlighting a genocide was pretty gangster too.
Perhaps one day the mainstream commentators can get past Trump’s bluster and realize that none of his current actions are unprecedented, except for maybe the illegal events/year quantity.
I mean, Gen. Smedley Butler was involved in it and said as much. As he said, War is a Racket. In his words:
Judge Nap has been playing the video of Lindsey with Trump on his plane. Graham boot licks Trump while saying Cuba is next and a good thing too.
In defense of SC one should point out that when Graham appeared with Trump at an early campaign ’24 rally he was heartily booed. But it’s now clear that Graham is Trump’s true constituency rather than the thousands who cheered him at that rally. Trump’s in his mental bunker now if not yet in the still being constructed physical one.
I think they see eye to eye, no boot licking required.
Lindsey Graham has been pretty unpopular in South Carolina for decades, and he knows it. Republicans think he’s a RINO (Republican in Name Only), and I’ve always wondered if his ridiculous posturing is to try and counter that (and also cover up that he’s clearly a closeted homosexual).
He also needs large sums in order to win SC primaries, so some of his behavior is about that.
Re Maduro’s wife and her injuries. A statement came out from the admin saying that both Maduro and his wife bumped their heads on the door of the safe room that they were trying to get into. Guess that that explains the fractured ribs as well. Thing is, when you take a prisoner you suddenly have a duty of care and are required to give medical aid when required. As Maduro specifically had to ask for medical aid for his wife as well as a x-ray for her to check on her ribs when they first appeared in court, then I am going to assume that none of this was done from the moment that they were kidnapped till then.
Meanwhile Zelensky is asking Trump to kidnap Kadyrov, head of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Since he is much taller than her, he must have slilpped on a banana peel before headbutting her. The only thing missing in this slapstick statement are Keystone Cops chasing after them.
US special forces going into Chechnya would make a billion on pay-per-view. Lots of gambling opportunities too, for example on how long it would take them to chant “Akhmat sila”.
Just like Robin Givens “ran into a door knob” after showing a black eye and being married to Iron Mike Tyson.
> Meanwhile Zelensky is asking Trump to kidnap Kadyrov, head of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Stares into space for a few moments…
Sadly I don’t think Trump is going to bite, because the attempt would be funny.
Operation Turkey Claw?
Here’s some reader input. The image of Celia Flores is doctored by someone with lack of doctoring skills. The tape on her forhead goes over her hair, instead of beneath.
I read that when the Maduros appeared in court they were both wearing prison uniforms. This doesn’t look like a prison uniform.
It could be a jacket over a prison uniform.
Aargh, I hate this new AI world of having to verify every friggin’ image when I am racing to get a post together.
I removed it. His wife is blond. But the sketch is lousy, her face is not that angular in real life:
I’m not an art critic, but aren’t courtroom sketchers supposed to be realists?
This looks like Edvard Munch did it.
Maybe US courtrooms look like Edvard Munch’s painting.
random guess from an artist, but I speculate that this courtroom sketch was done on a tablet with a digital drawing / painting program. I use them frequently now for live performance and design and they are clumsy (particularly the digital pens), especially when handled quickly. The first time I saw this I was immediately shocked by the poor quality of rendering — in particular its failure to understand basic anatomy.
re: sanctions on countries buying RU oil.
T is only driving RU and China closer together. From last Sept.
Russia clinches major new gas pipeline deal with China as West shuns supplies
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/power-of-siberia-2-russia-signs-new-gas-pipeline-deal-with-china.html
Don Gotti get his cut, up front, for supplying the muscle on behalf of the transnational family of non-national kleptocrats. No Teflon needed, given the irrelevance of the constitution and international law…a new “order”, being constructed in real time, legislated by the convergence of military muscle and financial extortion.
Assuming no-teflon Don’s Venezuelan oil toll-gate phantasm is eventually successful, and that’s a big ‘we’ll see’, how much of that oil will find its way to companies like Motiva Enterprises, who apparently own the largest refinery in N. America. It may be in Port Arthur, TX, and simplistically considered an “American” Company, but its ownership and control seem much more transnational and non-national. “America first” in façade only.
Trump has been coercing EU leaders to double, triple, even quadruple domestic pharmaceutical prices, perhaps to hedge the impact of China and India using this lever. I can’t see how doing so would be survivable for those EU heads.
“Will Russia or China man up? ”
No they will hang separately as will Iran.
Like the Democrats and their famous “dry powder”, all the superior military tech of Russia and China will go for naught if they don’t use it, and especially if they don’t coordinate to prevent their allies (or, at least, strategic partners, if allies is too strong a term) from being picked off one by one. All their talk about international law at the UN and similar venues means nothing when at least two nuclear-armed nations have been spitting on international law for decades. The problem is the US (including its Israel branch) still seems to be far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of intelligence assets and information warfare. And decapitation strikes have become one of the favorite tricks used.
It doesn’t help when you have flaky partners. I remember Putin commenting on both the Syrian coup and Iran 12 day war during one of his Q&A sessions.
He said the Assad govt was reluctant to accept Russian help and expertise or even advice about reform and instead kept day dreaming about normalizing relations with the West.
He also mentioned that Iran refused further Russian assistance or integration of their air defense systems and only now decided to accept assistance from Russia and China. Meanwhile the ayatollahs are too busy mulling over fatwas about prohibiting nuclear weapons, while Israel and the US are planning new strikes. Maybe take a hint from the DPRK.
Well, man up for what? Greenland is a European problem. The Russians and Chinese aren’t going to stick their neck out for a people that won’t fight for themselves.
Iran is too busy waiting for the Madhi to save them.
The two empty tankers are hardly anything starting a war for. But if the US decides to go all in on piracy, then that will be a different story.
Pretty much my though, too. NATO and EU are tearing themselves apart, Latin America is suddenly more anti-USA and pro-multipolar than ever before, Ukraine/NATO is still losing the war…
On a side note, I did see a hilarious comment on the Russian telegram: the US Navy chased that tanker like it had all the unredacted Epstein files onboard…
Some Chinese analysts think it was just a dry run for a eventual takeover of Greenland. Also gave cover so the US could quickly move in and station naval and air assets.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/MIkxNORja2swC_iLfOa7gg?poc_token=HEwsYGmjTtdWkavmpKZQA_Z4MTDtTWjnGK1glRZ9
Low-cost “man up” – seize a few US-flagged tankers and their fully loaded crews for some violation, fully loaded with US grain or oil. An empty freighter for a few fully loaded half billion hostage. Bonus if it’s loaded with something Europe paid for.
If there are US crew it will be all over the US media. What will the US do? Well when Iran grabbed some revenge tankers, TACO, and the tankers and crew were released once the media moved on.
Man up and save the western world form itself, so that it could attack Russia again in the future. Zhukov said a few words about that.
Russia’s Coordinated Ship Seizures End Neutral Commerce Forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvTGaQQ6EuM
Twelve US vessels seized?
Seems like something. But I guess if it’s not reported in the MSM then nothing happen.
Correction: These are not all US vessels; sorry for the mistake, it’s almost impossible to get any hard information on this.
Another correct: I’m trying to figure out if this is AL slop. I heard it reported earlier, but cannot find anything else out anywhere, even sources like RT. So hmmm… Not sure.
Somewhere, perhaps here on NC, I saw a post purporting to be a section of UNCLOS that stated a ship in transit may not reflag unless there is an actual change in ownership. The details about the tanker seem to be limited, so if things get sticky I would expect the U.S. might pull out that clause (assuming it’s correct) and say it wasn’t really a Russian ship because the reflagging wasn’t legit,
I don’t really expect that will happen, because at this point laws and treaties mean about as much to Trump as does the price of Kraft Dinner.
Alexander Mercouris reported yesterday that the tanker was sold at a very knocked down price while at sea, I did not listen that attentively, but it was either to a Russian interest or the Russian merchant navy. Russians are extremely legalistic so I would assume forms were observed.
A good source on this story was posted on the “Whats’s going on with shipping” YT channel yesterday 1/7.
Martyanov points out that from UNCLOS, changes of flags are not allowed at sea except in the case of a real transfer of ownership. Will there be a trial?
Article 92 Status of ships 1. Ships shall sail under the flag of one State only and, save inexceptional cases expressly provided for in international treaties or in this Convention, shall be subject to its exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas. A ship may not change its flag during a voyage or while in a port of call, save in the case of a real transfer of ownership or change of registry.2. A ship which sails under the flags of two or more States, using them according to convenience, may not claim any of the nationalities in question with respect to any other State, and may be assimilated to a ship without nationality.
And Denmark, if they mean business, then they should evict all the US personnel in that base in Greenland, pronto.
I’m afraid if denmark did that, they would be emphatically ignored.
This,to quote the most prophetic film of recent years
The species is reluctant to identify.
Well, a ship in transit can’t change it’s flag at will nor can it have more than one flag, which all makes sense. But the ship in question did change it’s registration to Russia (as per Russian Ministry of Transportation) which allows it to change the flag under UNCLOS.
According to the Russian sources, majority of the crew is Ukrainian, with a few Russians and Georgians in the mix.
Brings to mind commerce raider CSS Shenandoah which was operating in the Pacific during the US Civil War. Shenandoah had seized a merchant ship which had reflagged from US to Kingdom of Hawaii. Shenandoah’s captain deemed the reflagging invalid and took it any way.
Looks to me the question of reflagging would be handled by the ITLOS if dispute was among signatories, but since the US is not it will I guess be done in US Federal Court under Admiralty jurisdiction.
In MAGA-land there is a theory that Bella I was actually carrying weapons from Iran for delivery to Venezuela and that was why there was interest in t.
I don’t think so. Ownership is one thing and flag a different thing. The owner can change flag probably by something as simple as renting the ship to someone in another country.
No, it’s not that simple.
It is as simple as the country who is accepting to flag the ship decides. If Russia legally registers the ship, no matter the nationality of the owner, it can navigate under the Russian flag. You just have to add the registration data to the books in the ship. It must have an insurance but I guess Russian ships no longer rely on Lloyds or any Western insurance. This does not depend on UNCLOS but other international laws.
Brenna Perez? I’ve only seen references to the shooting and killing of poet Renee Nicole Good, right?
“Trump is defending the murder-by-ICE of award-winning poet and Minneapolis resident Brenna Perez”
Mangled edit, now fixed. See tweet with the breakdown of the shooting just before the end. Brenna Perez created that and I had mentioned here and Good at the top, then cut the wrong name out in tightening the opening para.
Tariq Ali has a response at NLR’s Sidecar, Abduction in Caracas. Very good on the successes of the Bolivarian movement, as well as its difficulties bearing up under the strain of US pressures. Vignettes of conversations with Chavez included.
After troubling over the Venezuelan debacle for several days and the destruction of any possible trust of this country by friend or foe, I have begun to think the seizure of Maduro and the threats sprayed all over the world might be an elaborate distraction from Trump’s pedophilia problem. As everyone seems to acknowledge, Trump cannot exploit Venezuela’s resources without its cooperation, and that is unlikely.
This ball may not stay up in the air very long. When it falls, there will be something else until he dies or is impeached.
So much for the shining city on the hill.
It’s Wag The Dog all the way down,
Tariq Ali’s piece ends with Chávez’ observation that the revolutionary leader should go down fighting. This Maduro conspicuously did not do. Seemingly oblivious to the deaths of his security detail, sleeping in an official residence with his wife, he allowed himself to be arrested and taken away.
The story of his capture, and the murder of his bodyguards, has yet to be told.
I get an all-day earworm of Harry Belafonte’s “Matilda” the moment anyone says “run Venezuela” !
It feels very hard to keep up with how fast things are moving. I keep trying to recalibrate, but every day my expectations are like fishing boats. For almost a whole year, “what the famly-blog is this?”, is all I keep thinking.