The US military has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. This latest move fuels concerns that it could escalate tensions between the two countries, with Trinidad and Tobago being a close neighbour. And the Prime Minister says crude oil sanction-busting activities can be flagged on the radar installed in Tobago.
00:00We've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually, and other things are happening, so you'll be seeing that later and you'll be talking about that later with some other people.
00:19The major announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump during a roundtable discussion at the White House on Wednesday. The government of oil-rich Venezuela, which has been the subject of U.S. sanctions, has claimed the increased U.S. military presence in the Caribbean is about regime change in Venezuela. The U.S. government says it's about its war on drug cartels. President Trump said on Wednesday the tanker was seized for a very good reason.
00:44The oil tanker, who owns that oil tanker?
00:47You'll get that information later.
00:48Okay, and have you spoken to Maduro since your last conversation?
00:51No, I haven't.
00:51There's only been one conversation.
00:53U.S. Attorney General Pam Bundy posted on X that the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
01:11The U.S. Attorney General said this seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely.
01:18When contacted for comment, Prime Minister Kamala Pesad-Besessa made reference to her statement late last week about the radar system recently installed by the U.S. military at the A&R Robinson Airport in Tobago.
01:29Prime Minister Pesad-Besessa told TV6 News on Wednesday that she, quote, clearly said that the new radar system assists with the detection of Venezuelan crude oil sanctioned busting activities and traffickers who have been conducting deliveries of narcotics, firearms, ammunition, and migrants into our country from Venezuela, end quote.
01:51The Prime Minister also told TV6 News that she told the country last week that the questions raised by the PNM regarding the newly installed radar are a desperate effort to force the government to disclose sensitive national security information to aid what she called the PNM's long-suspected local drug mafia financiers and Venezuelan criminal collaborators to circumvent surveillance.
02:13The Prime Minister repeated questions she posed in a media release she issued late last week as she had called on the opposition to explain why the existing radar system operated under the PNM government for years did not detect oil tankers engaged in the ship-to-ship transfer of sanctioned Venezuelan oil within Trinidadian waters, which led to the obtaining of documentation stating that Trinidad was the port of origin for this oil and not Venezuela.
02:41The opposition leader has condemned what she called inflammatory statements made by the Prime Minister about the PNM.
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