Name: U.S. plans to intercept another oil tanker linked to Venezuela
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T14:54:43.040Z
Duration: 4 min 46 s
Description: The U.S. is planning to intercept another sanctioned oil tanker historically linked to Venezuelan oil transport, two officials with knowledge of the plan tell CBS News. Ret. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery joins CBS News with more.

The U.S. is planning to intercept another sanctioned oil tanker historically linked to Venezuelan oil transport, two officials with knowledge of the plan tell CBS News. Ret. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery joins CBS News with more.

Caracas

The U.S has launched strikes on sites inside Venezuela, including military facilities and arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro along wife his wife.

Venezuela Strikes

CBS News reports that U.S. forces are planning to intercept the Marinera Accrued Oil Tanker, formerly known as the Bela I, which is involved in the trading of Venezuelan oil. This operation follows similar actions in recent months, with U.S. officials preferring to capture such vessels rather than sink them, as part of a broader effort to enforce an oil embargo against Venezuela.

Military analysts, including retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, highlight that these actions are intended to constrain Venezuela's ability to export crude oil and maintain economic pressure on its government. However, experts caution that the continued deployment of U.S. naval and air forces in the Caribbean, alongside other global commitments, could reduce overall military readiness and strategic flexibility.

U.S. plans to intercept another oil tanker linked to Venezuela

As CBS News has learned, U.S. forces are planning to intercept an oil tanker involved in the trading of Venezuelan oil. Two U.S. officials with knowledge of the plan say U.S. forces have pursued the Marinera Accrued Oil Tanker, formerly known as the Bela I, since last month. The officials say the U.S. would rather capture the vessel than sink it, and say the operation could two-seize it, could be similar to this one you're watching now. conducted last month when U.S. forces captured another oil tanker after it left port there in Venezuela. For more on what military action the U.S. military could take next, retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery joins us. He's also a senior director and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Good morning, Admiral Montgomery. So as we've laid out here, President Trump says the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela, but as we've just discussed, this military footprint is huge, and you've got this oil quarantine. What do you make of that? Yeah, thanks. So, you know, the U.S. military carried out a very effective maximum pressure campaign over the last three months that culminated in the kinetic operations we saw three nights ago. And I think now we're at that point where if we're going to, judging by what the president wants, which is to constrain Venezuela's ability to deliver crude oil that isn't determined by the United States, what you're going to continue to see is a quarantine or embargo of shadow fleet oilers carrying Venezuelan oil out to other countries. We've already seized three of these vessels. There's a fourth one we've been chasing that you noted that we're about to board. And I think this is just a strong signal, like, don't get underway. I think the rest of the shadow fleet is not heading towards Venezuela, empty tankers to pick up fuel. And what this does is basically it's a way to keep pressure on the Venezuelan regime. So when the United States says they're, quote, running things in Venezuela, I think what they really mean from a military point of view is we're preventing Venezuela from executing fossil fuel deliveries, which powers their economy. OK, so the signal is out and the pressure is on. But I want to get your response to this, because on the takeout with Major Garrett yesterday, Aaron McLean, who served in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan and is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, he spoke about the Trump administration's foreign policy overall here. Let's just listen to that. One thing that I think we need to keep in mind with this president is he does not seem to feel restricted in any way to the Western Hemisphere. He has already intervened militarily in Iran, not to speak of other places. So for the extent to which he wants to reassert himself here in our hemisphere and draw a line for countries like China, for Russia, which, by the way, provided most of the air defense systems that manifestly did not work very well. Do you agree with that assessment? And if so, might the White House, might President Trump seek further interventionist action elsewhere? I think he might. I think he's probably fixated more on the Western Hemisphere right now. So, you know, he's mentioned Colombia. He's mentioned Mexico. I think these are threats to try to, as part of a maximum pressure campaign on those countries, to get them to give concessions on either, in some cases, in support for drug cartels or failure to deal with drug cartels. But certainly he has opened the door to that. If you heard Stephen Miller speak over the last 48 hours, the deputy chief of staff, he's very aggressive and speaks as if American power is just a tool that could be used wantonly around the hemisphere. So I do worry about that. And I'll tell you, it will have an impact on the military, because maintaining this many ships in proximity to Venezuela and not doing maintenance, not doing training, means they're not ready for the missions that they were actually designed for, which is kind of the high-end warfare with either China or Russia. So this is going to introduce a conundrum for the U.S. military over the next 12 to 24 months. So with a president who seems unrestricted or less restricted, there is a risk of spreading the U.S. military too thin here? I think we're almost there, right? We were spread thin after October 7th with the Middle East deployments in support of Israel and then eventually in attacking Iran. Those had just ended, and the U.S. military was trying to figure out how to recover readiness when an equal amount of forces were put into the Caribbean. This is the most forces we've had in the Caribbean in 40 years. And we're sustaining them. And it looks like his intention is to keep the most under-demand forces, the air and naval forces, in place. And that is really going to put a squeeze on the U.S. military at a time when we're trying to think about how you deal with an expansive and growing Chinese air and naval threat. Such important points that you've made. Retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, appreciate your time this morning. Come back any time. Thank you for having me, Eric.

The United Kingdom aided the U.S. in an operation to seize a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Venezuela in the North Atlantic. CBS News' Ramy Inocencio reports.

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U.S. plans to intercept another oil tanker linked to Venezuela

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