Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed the seizure of tankers off Venezuela, saying he is against the moves and calling them a "provocation and a prelude to war."
"I'm not for confiscating these liners. I'm not for blowing up these boats of unarmed people that are suspected of being drug dealers. I'm not for any of this," Paul told ABC News.
He went on to slam the administration's policy regarding drug-trafficking, calling it "bizarre and contradictory," particularly due to recent the pardoning of former Honduran President Juan Orland Hernandez, sentenced to prison for drug-trafficking in the U.S.
"And then why is the former president Hernandez of Honduras, who was in jail for 45 years, why is he released?" Paul wondered during a passage of the interview.
"So, some narco-terrorists are really OK and other narco-terrorists we're going to blow up. And then some of them, if they're not designated as a terrorist, we might arrest them," he added.
Paul has repeatedly criticized the administration over the military campaign. Last week he said "I'm not down for sending kinds I know in the military to die for oil."
"The president announced the other day he's going back to seize our land, our oil. That made no sense at all," Paul added in reference to Trump's justification for the blockade.
Concretely, Trump demanded last Wednesday that Venezuela return assets it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago. "You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it," Trump said.
Fortune noted that U.S. oil companies played a leading role in Venezuela's oil industry for decades until different governments nationalized the sector, first in the 1970s and in recent years by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, the outlet added, recalling that in 2014 an international arbitration panel ordered the country to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.
Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, on his end, has rejected Trump's claims and the blockade, saying the country will continue trading and he won't be toppled.
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
