Venezuela’s regional allies voiced support for the government in a summit on Sunday, condemning the Trump administration’s seizure of an oil tanker last week.
The seizure of the Skipper tanker off Venezuela’s coast last Wednesday marked the first U.S. capture of Venezuelan oil cargo since U.S. sanctions were imposed in 2019.
The support for President Nicolas Maduro, at a televised virtual meeting of the leftist ALBA bloc of Caribbean and Latin American countries, occurred during the escalation of a U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean.
“Latin America and the Caribbean today face threats that don’t have precedent in the last decades,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said during the summit.
Referring to the U.S. seizure of the tanker, Nicaragua’s co-President Daniel Ortega exclaimed, “they are thieves.” The effects of the seizure could ripple through the region, with Venezuelan oil exports falling sharply and Cuba, already straining to power its grid, at risk of losing supply.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration does not recognize Maduro, in power since 2013, as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The region has become increasingly tense as the U.S. has issued deadly strikes against suspected drug trafficking boats off the Venezuelan coast and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Maduro has said that Trump is seeking to oust him.
At the summit, Maduro called for the ALBA bloc to resist what he described as unlawful interference in the region.
“The colonizer project will not occur,” he said. “We will be free.”
(Reporting by Leila Miller; Editing by Paul Simao)