What began with the United States’ attack on Venezuela has now gone global.
Not content with the rendition of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, amid a firestorm of destruction in Caracas, the Trump administration has followed with the military seizure of two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil. The first, the Sophia, was in the Caribbean. The second, the Marinera, was thousands of miles away, in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic near Iceland.
The tanker was Russian-flagged, causing some to read this move as an assault on Moscow’s sanctions-evading “shadow fleet.” But while the Kremlin is unlikely to be impressed, Washington’s target was Venezuelan resources. It also seems plausible that with Ukraine negotiations ongoing, Trump may offer the Russian leadership concessions elsewhere, to encourage it to overlook the tanker incident. According to a former White House aide, Moscow has offered a quid pro quo on Venezuela and Ukraine before.
Another country inserting itself into the maelstrom is Britain. On Monday, ten US C-17 transport aircraft and two AC-130J ground-attack gunships were sighted arriving at RAF Fairford, carrying special operations forces, reportedly including veterans of the Caracas attack. Two days later, they took off to carry out the seizure of the Marinera, with Britain’s Ministry of Defence actively collaborating.
US spy planes also arrived, and this force was strikingly large for the seizure of a single vessel. So it seems that there may be more to come. As if that wasn’t enough, NATO diplomats are now discussing sending troops to secure Greenland from being invaded by US forces.
The fallout from events in Caracas suddenly spans three continents, and points to a world on fire. It reflects the searing crises of climate breakdown, the destabilization of capitalism, and the unfolding consequences of colonial extractivism.
We might first spare a thought for the crews of the Marinera and the…
Auteur: Nathan Akehurst
