Venezuela says oil exports continue normally despite Trump ‘blockade’

CARACAS: Venezuela struck a defiant note Wednesday, insisting that crude oil exports were not impacted by US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a blockade.

“Export operations for crude and byproducts continue normally. Oil tankers linked to PDVSA operations continue to sail,” state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) said in a statement.

Trump said on Tuesday that he was imposing “a total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela.”

Referring to the heavy US military presence in the Caribbean — including the world’s largest aircraft carrier — Trump warned “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America.”

Venezuela’s battered economy relies heavily on petroleum exports.

But the country’s military, which supports embattled hard-left President Nicolas Maduro, said it was “not intimidated.”

PDVSA said that “none of these aggressions have succeeded in denting the operational capacity or the determination of the workforce.”