US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against the South American country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

The US president confirmed the operation on Wednesday. “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela – a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” he said. “And other things are happening so you will be seeing that later and you will be talking about that later with other people.”

“It was seized for a very good reason,” Trump told reporters, declining to say who owned the vessel.

Two US officials told Reuters the operation was led by the US Coast Guard, but did not name the tanker or say specifically where the interception happened. A senior Trump administrati

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