Politics
‘We want it back’: Trump asserts U.S. claims to Venezuelan oil and land
MEXICO CITY — President Trump’s order of a partial blockade on oil tankers going to and from Venezuela and his claim that Caracas stole “oil, land and other assets” from the United States mark a significant escalation of Washington’s unrelenting campaign against the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
Asked about Venezuela on Wednesday, Trump said the United States will be “getting land, oil rights and whatever we had.”
“We want it back,” he said without further elaboration. It was unclear whether Trump planned to say more about Venezuela in a televised address to the nation late Wednesday night.
The blockade, which aims to cripple the key component of Venezuela’s faltering, oil-dependent economy, comes as the Trump administration has bolstered military forces in the Caribbean, blown up more than two dozen boats allegedly ferrying illicit drugs in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, and threatened military strikes on Venezuela and neighboring Colombia.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a rambling post Tuesday night on his social media site. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”
Not long after Trump announced the blockade Tuesday night, the government of Venezuela denounced the move and his other efforts as an attempt to “rob the riches that belong to our people.”
Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez is flanked by First Vice President Pedro Infante, left, and Second Vice President America Perez during an extraordinary session at the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas on Dec. 17, 2025.
(Juan Barreto / AFP/Getty Images)
Leaders of other Latin American nations called for calm and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, after a phone call with Maduro, called on U.N. members to “exert restraint and de-escalate tensions to preserve regional stability.”
Also Wednesday, Trump received rare pushback from the Republican-dominated Congress, where some lawmakers are pressuring the administration to disclose more information about its deadly attacks on alleged drug boats.
The Senate gave final approval to a $900-billion defense policy package that, among other things, would require the administration to disclose to lawmakers specific orders behind the boat strikes along with unedited videos of the deadly attacks. If the administration does not comply, the bill would withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget.
The bill’s passage came a day after Hegseth and Secretary Marco Rubio briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill about the U.S. military campaign. The meetings left lawmakers with a mixed reaction, largely with Republicans backing the campaign and Democrats expressing concern about it.
The White House has said its military campaign in Venezuela is meant to curb drug trafficking, but U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data show that Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the U.S.-bound narcotics trade.
Trump also declared that the South American country had been designated a “foreign terrorist organization.” That would apparently make Venezuela the first nation slapped with a classification normally reserved for armed groups deemed hostile to the United States or its allies. The consequences remain unclear for Venezuela.
A U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17 Globemaster takes off from Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport, formerly Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, on in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.
(Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP/Getty Images)
Regional responses to the Trump threats highlight the new ideological fault lines in Latin America, where right-wing governments in recent years have won elections in Chile, Argentina and Ecuador.
The leftist leaders of the region’s two most populous nations — Brazil and Mexico — have called for restraint in Venezuela.
“Whatever one thinks about the Venezuelan government or the presidency of Maduro, the position of Mexico should always be: No to intervention, no to foreign meddling,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday, calling on the United Nations to look for a peaceful solution and avert any bloodshed.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also urged Trump to pull back from confrontation. “The power of the word can outweigh the power of the gun,” Lula said he told Trump recently, offering to facilitate talks with the Maduro government.
But Chile’s right-wing president-elect, José Antonio Kast, said he supports a change of government in Venezuela, asserting that it would reduce migration from Venezuela to other nations in the region.
Surrounded by security, Chilean President-elect José Antonio Kast, second from right, leaves after a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei in Buenos Aires on Dec. 16, 2025.
(Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)
“If someone is going to do it, let’s be clear that it solves a gigantic problem for us and all of Latin America, all of South America, and even for countries in Europe,” Kast said, referring to Venezuelan immigration.
In his Tuesday post, Trump said he had ordered a “complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into, and out of, Venezuela.” Although the move is potentially devastating to Venezuela’s economy, the fact that the blockade will affect only tankers already sanctioned by U.S. authorities does give Venezuela some breathing room, at least for now.
Experts estimated that between one-third and half of tankers transporting crude to and from Venezuela are part of the so-called dark fleet of sanctioned tankers. The ships typically ferry crude from Venezuela and Iran, two nations under heavy U.S. trade and economic bans.
However, experts said that even a partial blockade will be a major hit for Venezuela’s feeble economy, already reeling under more than a decade of U.S. penalties. And Washington can continue adding to the list of sanctioned tankers.
“The United States can keep sanctioning more tankers, and that would leave Venezuela with almost no income,” said David A. Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University. “That would probably cause a famine in the country.”
The growing pressure, analysts said, will probably mean the diminishing number of firms willing to take the risk of transporting Venezuelan crude will increase their prices, putting more pressure on Caracas. Purchasers in China and elsewhere will also probably demand price cuts to buy Venezuelan oil.
Trump has said that Maduro must go because he is a “narco-terrorist” and heads the “Cartel de los Soles,” which the White House calls a drug-trafficking syndicate. Trump has put a $50-million bounty on Maduro’s head. Experts say that Cartel de los Soles is not a functioning cartel, but a shorthand term for Venezuelan military officers who have been involved in the drug trade for decades, long before Maduro or his predecessor and mentor, the late Hugo Chávez, took office.
(Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg / Getty Images)
In his comments Tuesday, Trump denounced the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, a process that began in the 1970s, when Caracas was a strong ally of Washington.
Echoing Trump’s point that Venezuela “stole” U.S. assets was Stephen Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, who declared on X: “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
Among those believed to be driving Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants to Florida. Rubio has long been an outspoken opponent of the communist governments in Havana and Caracas. Venezuelan oil has helped the economies of left-wing governments in both Cuba and Nicaragua.
Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House, said Rubio has been on a longtime campaign to remove Maduro.
“He has his own political project,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get rid of the dictators in Venezuela and Cuba.”
McDonnell and Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Ceballos from Washington. Special correspondent Mery Mogollón in Caracas contributed to this report.
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Fresh satellite images give a rare aerial view of the damage across Iran after U.S.-Israeli strikes and what Tehran’s retaliation left behind across the region.
Planet Labs satellite imagery captured burning ships and damaged facilities at the Konarak base in southern Iran, as well as significant destruction at Iran’s naval headquarters in Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, reflecting the scale of the strikes on military infrastructure.
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows damage at Konarak naval base in southern Iran, left, and Iran’s Bandar Abbas naval headquarters in the Persian Gulf, right. (Planet Labs PBC)
Imagery from Vantor shows damage to facilities and vessels located in Iran’s Bushehr port in the Persian Gulf.
In addition to naval assets, satellite photos show a bunker at Bushehr air base hit by a strike, leaving a large crater and destroying several nearby small buildings.
More strikes targeted the Choqa Balk drone facility in western Iran.
Radar systems at the Zahedan air base in eastern Iran — near the country’s borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan — were also struck.
The two facilities are about 800 to 900 miles apart, underscoring the broad reach of the coordinated strikes.
Satellite imagery also reveals damage to aircraft on the tarmac at Shiraz air base, including scorch marks and debris around several parking areas.
Side-by-side photos showing damage to aircraft at Shiraz air base in Shiraz, Iran on March 6, 2026. (Vantor/Maxar/Getty Images)
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows thick smoke plumes rising above Tehran, signaling explosions and fires inside the Iranian capital.
The smoke underscores how the conflict has moved beyond isolated military sites and into the heart of Iran’s political center.
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A satellite image from Planet Labs shows a plume of smoke above Tehran, Iran, on March 1, 2026. (Planet Labs PBC)
Iran has since responded with missile and drone strikes of its own, expanding the conflict across the region.
Satellite images reveal damage to the port city of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Sharjah is the third most populous after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
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The Jebel Ali Port, the region’s largest maritime hub, was also targeted, underscoring how the retaliation extended beyond military sites to key infrastructure.
The new satellite imagery comes on the heels of U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several top members of the regime, triggering a succession crisis.
President Donald Trump warned on Sunday that Iran’s new leader is “not going to last long” without U.S. approval as Operation Epic Fury marches into a third week.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran entered its ninth day Sunday with no clear path toward de-escalation, as the U.S. announced a seventh American service member had been killed and Iranian state TV reported the selection of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son as his successor.
Meanwhile, the price of oil surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time in 3½ years.
President Trump said deploying American ground troops to the Middle East remains under consideration and Iran’s foreign minister rejected calls for a ceasefire.
Trump said last week that Mojtaba Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice to replace his father, the 86-year-old leader who was killed on the first day of U.S. and Israeli attacks. The clerical body in charge of choosing Iran’s next supreme leader selected him anyway, state TV reported Sunday.
The younger Khamenei, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, has never held government office, but has long been a quiet force within his father’s inner circle. As supreme leader, he will play a central role in deciding Iran’s war strategy moving forward, with the powerful paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps answering to him.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his selection.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump declined to rule out the possibility of sending U.S. forces inside Iran, saying it could “possibly happen” as the conflict intensifies.
“There would have to be a very good reason,” Trump said. “I would say if we ever did that they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level.”
His remarks came ahead of another relentless day of bombings in Iran, and as desalination plants critical to civilian water supplies in the arid region came under attack on both sides of the conflict.
The United States military on Sunday announced that an American service member died Saturday night of injuries sustained March 1 in Saudi Arabia during Iran’s “initial attacks” on U.S. allies and facilities across the region, in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes. The service member was not immediately identified, pending notification of family.
In addition to the seven U.S. service members killed in the war, a National Guard soldier died Friday of a “health-related incident” in Kuwait, where he had been deployed, the military said. The cause of death was under review.
Other deaths were also reported in the region. Israel reported two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon — its first military deaths of the war — while Saudi Arabia reported two people were killed and 12 wounded by a military projectile that fell in a residential area of Al Kharj.
The death toll in Iran has been difficult to nail down, but Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Friday put the number at more than 1,300.
Iran has said it is prepared to continue fighting the war despite sustaining heavy losses and would be ready to fight American ground troops if they set foot in the country.
“We have very brave soldiers who are waiting for any enemy who enters into our soil to fight with them, and to kill them and destroy them,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Araghchi added that Iran is not considering a ceasefire at this time. He said the United States and Israel would first need to explain “why they started this aggression and then guarantee there would be a permanent end of the war.”
“Unless we get to that, I think we need to continue fighting for the sake of our people and our security,” he said.
Araghchi also pushed back on Trump’s demand last week that the president be involved in determining Iran’s future leadership as a condition to ending the conflict.
“We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader,” Araghchi said. “It’s only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else’s business.”
In addition to mounting deaths and widespread destruction, the economic toll of the war has also continued to rise, particularly in energy markets — with oil prices jumping above $100 a barrel on Sunday.
“If the war continues like this, there will be neither a way to sell oil nor have the ability to produce it,” Iran’s parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post Sunday. He added that the war would affect not just the U.S., but also the rest of the world “due to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s delusions.”
Israeli strikes Sunday hit an oil storage facility in Tehran, marking what appears to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. Black smoke billowed over the Iranian capital, with officials there warning of the hazardous health effects for residents.
“By targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that there’s a “fear premium in the marketplace” and sought to assure Americans that the soaring oil prices are a short-term problem.
“We never know exactly the time frame of this,” Wright said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months, thing.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the same message in an interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” calling the rising gas prices a “short-term disruption.”
“Ultimately taking out the rogue Iranian regime is going to be a good thing for the oil industry,” Leavitt said. “Those prices are going to come back down just like they have over the course of the past year, because of President Trump’s American energy dominance agenda.”
The strike on the oil storage facility came as Netanyahu promised “many surprises” for the next phase of the conflict.
Israel also claimed Sunday to have destroyed the Tehran headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard air force, which it said operated Iran’s “ballistic missile command, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) array, and other air force units.” It also said it had killed five top commanders in the Revolutionary Guard who were “hiding in a civilian hotel” in central Beirut, Lebanon.
Crucial civilian infrastructure also came under attack, on both sides of the conflict.
Bahrain denounced what it said was an Iranian attack on one of its desalination plants — facilities that supply water to millions of people in the parched deserts of the Persian Gulf. Araghchi said a U.S. airstrike had damaged an Iranian desalination plan on Qeshm Island first.
“Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran,” Araghchi wrote on X.
The United States has also come under scrutiny after evidence suggested that an American strike was probably responsible for an explosion at an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, most of them children.
Trump administration officials have said that the matter is under investigation and that no determination has been made as to who was responsible for the strike. But on Saturday, Trump said Iran was to blame for the explosion.
“It was done by Iran,” he told reporters. “They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”
Asked Sunday whether Iran had any evidence that the strike was conducted by the Americans, Araghchi said that it had to have been either the U.S. or Israeli military and that Trump’s suggestion that Iran was responsible for the attack was “funny.”
“It is our school, these are our students and our girls, and they are attacked by an American fighter, a jet fighter, and they have been killed. Why [is] Iran responsible?” Araghchi said.
Other world leaders and nations have called for a halt to fighting and added their own estimates to its toll.
Lebanon said more than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday, and urged him to stop strikes in the region. Macron is the first Western leader to speak with Pezeshkian since the war began, the Associated Press reported.
Pope Leo XIV wrote on X on Sunday that reports out of Iran and the wider Middle East “continue to cause deep dismay and raise the fear that the conflict will expand, and that other countries in the region, including dear Lebanon, may once again sink into instability.”
He asked the world to pray “for the roar of bombs to cease, weapons to fall silent, and space to open for dialogue, in which people’s voices may be heard.”
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President Donald Trump is vowing to reject signing any new bills into law until the SAVE America Act is passed by the Senate, a tall order with just 53 Republicans seated and the 60-vote filibuster threshold a high hurdle.
“Great Job by hard working Scott Pressler on Fox & Friends talking about using the Filibuster, or Talking Filibuster, in order to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, an 88% issue with ALL VOTERS,” Trump wrote Sunday morning on Truth Social. “It must be done immediately.”
“It supersedes everything else,” Trump added. “MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE.”
The vow to halt all new law signings is a new one coming from the White House and notable because of the Senate hesitation to follow the urgings of Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to force the Senate to bring the bill forward through the talking filibuster.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during an “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed,” Trump’s post continued, “AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!”
While Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has publicly acknowledged a willingness to bring a vote on the SAVE America Act before the upper chamber, there is hesitation within the Republican Party about forcing the talking filibuster under the current Senate rules.
The talking filibuster would force Democrats to speak on the Senate floor to argue against a voter identification position widely supported by Americans, as Trump noted, but it would also force Republicans to sit in attendance with a quorum. That has been rebuked by longtime Senate GOP veterans as something that would “waste time.”
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has promised to bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor, but there remains some GOP hesitation on forcing the talking filibuster. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been publicly opposed to forcing a talking filibuster because of the time constraints it would force on the Senate GOP, and he remains one of the few Senate Republicans not signing on to support the SAVE America Act.
Another development that clouds the SAVE America Act filibuster is the recent appointment of Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to serve as the next Department of Homeland Security secretary, perhaps resigning from the Senate by the end of March.
Fox News Digital reached out to Mullin’s office for comment. McConnell’s office declined to comment on Trump’s Truth Social vow to block all new law signings amid the standoff on the DHS funding that has the government in a partial shutdown and the Senate sitting on the House-passed SAVE America Act.
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“We’re going to have a vote on this, but in terms of what the president is willing to sign, Maria, we need to get the Department of Homeland Security funded,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wy., told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“The Democrats have blocked that right now. And the greatest threat to the American people today is terrorism. So I want to make sure that the Democrats work with us to pass and fund the Department of Homeland Security, because I’m worried about the lone wolf, the sleeper cells and the cyber terrorism that’s coming our way because of what Iran is telling people around the world to do to continue this reign of terror,” Barrasso said.
Getting to 60 votes in the Senate is unlikely with just Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., as the lone potential Democrat vote to side with the Senate GOP on the SAVE America Act.
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Senate GOP WHIP John Barrasso, R-Wy., and current Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have expressed more support for forcing Democrats to filibuster the SAVE America Act than former GOP leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (Getty Images)
“The Democrats are against so many of the things that I think help this country,” Barrasso added to Bartiromo. “They’d rather stand with illegal immigrant criminals than with the safety and security of the American people. I want to get the Save act to the floor. I want to have a vote.”
“That’s the next step on this need to get the Department of Homeland Security open and funded,” he continued. “The Democrats are bowing to the liberal left: The people that want to eliminate ICE, the people that want open borders again, and the people that really aren’t looking out for the best interest of the American people.
“As the president said in the State of the Union, it is the first duty of the American government to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. But that’s what not one single Democrat stood up for that when every Republican stood and cheered loudly.”
Barrasso, the Senate GOP member whipping up support, considers the SAVE America Act “common sense.”
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“You want to make sure that only citizens can vote,” he concluded to Bartiromo. “You want to make sure that when people show up, they have a photo ID to prove they are who they say they are. You need a you need a photo ID to buy a beer, to board a plane, all of those things. And it’s 90% popular with the American people. The only people against this are the Democrats because they want to make it easier to cheat.”
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