Mainstream media outlets eagerly reported the Trump administration’s seizure of an oil tanker laden with Venezuelan oil as “an escalation in President Trump’s military pressure campaign against Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro,” as The New York Times put it. Yet not every new development is an escalation, and, for an administration that has stirred controversy by blasting nearly two dozen alleged drug boats out of the water, seizing oil tankers is a surprisingly conventional turn.

This is not to say the tanker seizure is a less effective means of pressuring the Venezuelan regime. The seized vessel, now called “The Skipper,” was carryingbetween one and two million barrels of Venezuela’s export grade oil, and the loss prompted Venezuela to squawk that the U.S. was guilty of “blatant theft” and “an act of international piracy.”

America’s seizure of the vessel was not piracy, according to international law. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines piracy as “any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft.” The U.S. government officially endorsed the capture of The Skipper and carried it out with official government forces.

Of course, it is still possible for a government to seize a vessel illegally, but that did not happen here. “With respect to the oil and what happened yesterday, the Department of Justice requested and was approved for a warrant to seize a vessel because it’s a sanctioned shadow vessel known for carrying black market sanctioned oil to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), which, you know, is a sanctioned entity,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained Thursday.

In November 2022, the Biden administration Treasury Department sanctioned The Skipper under its previous name, “Adisa,” for allegedly smuggling oil to fund Iran’s IRGC and Hezbollah. The ship is controlled by a company linked to sanctioned Russian oil magnate Viktor Artemov, is managed by a Nigeria-based company, and was flying the flag of Guyana (Venezuela’s neighbor to the east) at the time of its seizure. The government of Guyana said Wednesday that the ship was falsely flying its flag, since the ship is not registered in the country.

In short, “this is legal,” insisted retired Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO allied supreme commander. “This is a vessel that’s under sanction. This is law enforcement doing it — that’s Coast Guard, they’re law enforcement — not a single casualty.”

This is also not the first time America has confiscated sanctioned oil shipments from seagoing vessels. In August 2020, the U.S. seized 1.1 million barrels of petroleum from four vessels, which were transporting it from the IRGC to Venezuela.

By reprising that seizure, the Trump administration may have stumbled across another winning issue. The global oil smuggling network is big business and involves most of America’s adversaries, including Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a global shadow fleet deploys some 1,423 tankers, of which 921 have been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K., or the European Union. America has simply placed little emphasis on shutting down this trade — until now.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch sanctioned vessels sail the seas with black-market oil, the proceeds of which will fuel narco-terrorism of rogue and illegitimate regimes around the world,” declared Press Secretary Leavitt.

The Trump administration plans to effectively blockade Venezuela by intercepting and seizing other sanctioned ships near its coasts. On Wednesday, nearly 80 vessels were queued to load Venezuelan oil, including 30 sanctioned by the U.S. After American forces seized The Skipper, at least some of the vessels in Venezuelan ports have decided that it is unsafe to put to sea, with one trading executive canceling the outbound voyages of three tankers laden with six million tons of Venezuelan fuel.

The U.S. Treasury Department has also expanded sanctions to cover six more supertankers trafficking in Venezuelan fuel and on four Venezuelans.

Blockading Venezuelan oil exports may prove a surprisingly effective tool against Maduro’s dictatorship, which relies on black-market oil exports to other totalitarian regimes to prevent his illegitimate socialist regime from buckling under. In November, Venezuela was exporting more than 900,000 barrels per day. But if tankers either decide to stay in port or are seized in open waters, that cash flow could soon dwindle to a trickle.

Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) predicted the Trump administration would likely continue its pressure campaign against Maduro for the foreseeable future. “I think everybody ought to get used to this,” he said. “This administration is very much focused on pivoting away from forever wars on the sands of the Middle East and actually protecting the American people in our own hemisphere. So, this isn’t a one-and-done deal.”

When he was first asked what would happen with the sanctioned Venezuelan oil aboard The Skipper, Trump initially responded, “We keep it, I guess.” The government routinely confiscates contraband acquired in a law enforcement operation.

After review, the ruling on the field is confirmed. “The vessel will go to a U.S. port, and the United States does intend to seize the oil. However, there is a legal process for the seizure of that oil and that legal process will be followed,” Leavitt explained Thursday. “The vessel is currently undergoing a forfeiture process. Right now, the United States currently has a full investigative team on the ground, on the vessel, and individuals on board the vessel are being interviewed, and any relevant evidence is being seized.”

Two words in the reply give this operation far more staying power than the Trump administration’s intermittent strikes against alleged drug boats: “legal process.” Whereas the drug boat strikes have been dogged by unanswered legal and constitutional questions, the (non-lethal) seizure of sanctioned tankers laden with sanctioned oil is both legal and precedented. As Leavitt stated, the DOJ even obtained a warrant to seize The Skipper.

Is the operation creative? Certainly. Does it place additional pressure on Maduro’s regime? Undoubtedly. But, is it, as the mainstream media claims, an escalation from drug boat strikes and aggressive naval posturing? Not if the word “escalation” still means “taking to a higher level.” This is simply old-fashioned law enforcement against a global criminal enterprise. And when the government actually enforces its laws, it tends to make the criminals angry.