US Pursues Third Oil Tanker, Ramping Up Pressure on Venezuela

<p>Watch Joe and Kailey LIVE every day on YouTube: <a href="http://bit.ly/3vTiACF">http://bit.ly/3vTiACF</a>.<br /><br />The US Coast Guard&rsquo;s pursuit of a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela has intensified a blockade that the Trump administration hopes will cut off a vital economic lifeline and isolate the government of President Nicol&aacute;s Maduro.<br /><br />US forces chased the US-sanctioned Bella 1 on Sunday as it was en route to Venezuela. They boarded Centuries, a ship owned by a Hong Kong-based entity, on Saturday &mdash; the first non-sanctioned vessel to be targeted. Another very large crude carrier, the Skipper, was intercepted on Dec. 10.<br /><br />The moves on three separate vessels represent the most concerted attempt to date to sever the financial links sustaining a government that Washington says is led by a drug-trafficking cartel, and one that it has also recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Maduro has so far withstood the onslaught, but the blockade is beginning to limit hard currency and to hurt an already battered economy.<br /><br />On this edition, Joe speaks with:</p> <ul> <li>Nick Wadhams, Bloomberg US National Security Team Lead</li> <li>Nathan Dean, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US Policy Analyst to preview Congress for 2026</li> <li>Joseph Majkut, Director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies</li> <li>Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center and Bloomberg Politics Contributor &amp; Greta Joynes, Policy Director at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Republican Strategist on the latest fallout from the release of the Epstein files</li> </ul><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>