Venezuela’s National Assembly has passed a law enacting harsh penalties for those who support or help finance blockades and acts of piracy, including up to 20 years in prison.
The legislation was passed on Tuesday after the United States seized oil tankers linked to Venezuela, acts that the government of President Nicolas Maduro has denounced as lawless acts of piracy.
“This law seeks to protect the national economy and avoid the deterioration of living standards for the population,” Giuseppe Alessandrello said while presenting the law before the National Assembly, which is controlled by Maduro’s ruling party.
The US has carried out a series of increasingly aggressive measures over the past several months, deploying sizeable military forces to Latin America, seizing oil tankers, killing dozens of people in military strikes on what it says are drug-trafficking boats and threatening land strikes on Venezuela itself.
The legality of some of those acts, such as the seizures of oil tankers in international waters, is contested. Others, such as the strikes against alleged drug traffickers, are widely considered illegal.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the US military had moved special operations aircraft and cargo planes with troops into the Caribbean this week.
“We have a massive armada formed, the biggest we’ve ever had and by far the biggest we’ve ever had in South America,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Maduro has said the US is seeking to topple his government and seize control of Venezuela’s large oil reserves, which members of the Trump administration have falsely claimed rightfully belong to the US. Trump said on Monday that the US would retain the oil seized from the tankers as well as the tankers themselves.
The US pressure campaign has become a useful pretext for the Venezuelan government’s efforts to crack down on internal dissent.
Rights groups said the Maduro government has become more repressive since a presidential election in July 2024, in which Maduro claimed victory despite widespread doubts about the credibility of the results. The opposition has maintained it was the true winner, and few countries have recognised Maduro’s victory.
