The Trump administration stepped up a pressure campaign against Venezuela’s oil exports by sanctioning companies based in Hong Kong and mainland China, along with related oil tankers it accused of evading restrictions.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on December 31 added four companies with links to Venezuela’s oil industry — Zhejiang-based Corniola Ltd. and Hong Kong-based Aries Global Investment Ltd., Krape Myrtle Co and Winky International Ltd. — to its specially designated nationals and blocked persons list. It also sanctioned four vessels connected with those firms: Della, Nord Star, Rosalind and Valiant.

The U.S. already has a list of vessels and companies under sanction for their connections to Venezuela’s oil trade. But targeting Chinese firms doing business there is rare, and could be a signal to Beijing to steer clear of the stand-off between the Trump administration and the regime of Nicolás Maduro. China is Venezuela’s biggest customer for oil exports, which represent about 95% of Venezuela’s revenue.

“These vessels, some of which are part of the shadow fleet serving Venezuela, continue to provide financial resources that fuel Maduro’s illegitimate narco-terrorist regime,” the Treasury Department said in a statement. “Maduro’s regime increasingly depends on a shadow fleet of worldwide vessels to facilitate sanctionable activity, including sanctions evasion, and to generate revenue for its destabilizing operations.”

Of the vessels identified by the Treasury Department on December 31, only one has been anywhere close to Venezuela lately, according to ship-tracking data — the Rosalind, which typically is involved in short-haul trips known as cabotage. But it’s possible that others have traveled without sending transponder data.

Rising Pressure

The sanctions represent the latest move in President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Maduro over alleged drug trafficking operations. On December 30, the Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on 10 individuals and firms based in Iran and Venezuela over their alleged involvement in weapons trading.

U.S. forces have intercepted two carriers in recent weeks. A third turned away from Venezuela and retreated to the Atlantic Ocean after it was pursued by U.S. forces.

The U.S. has also launched strikes against purported drug trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela and also implemented a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers to disrupt the country’s crucial energy exports. 

U.S. Southern Command on December 31 said it struck three more vessels on December 30, sinking them and killing three individuals. Others on two of the boats jumped overboard and swam away from the crafts before their boats were sunk in a follow-up strike.

In a notable change from a highly-criticized September engagement in the Caribbean, when the U.S. launched a second strike, killing people who survived at first, Southern Command says it notified the Coast Guard to activate search and rescue. The fate of those who had jumped into the sea was not disclosed in the strike announcement.

Southern Command also said it had separately carried out a strike on December 31 on two more vessels, killing five people.

China ties

China has criticized the U.S. quarantine on Venezuelan ports as “unilateral bullying” and has said the ship seizures are a violation of international law. The private Chinese refiners known as teapots, which account for as much of one-fifth of the nation’s total refining capacity, have been reliable buyers of Venezuelan crude for years, despite U.S. sanctions.

China officially stopped importing Venezuelan crude for a period after U.S. sanctions in 2019, resuming only in February 2024. But through unofficial channels, the world’s top crude importer never stopped its purchases, with Venezuelan oil often being masked as bitumen mix, according to traders and third-party data providers. 

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment sent out of hours during a national holiday. 

Trump on December 29 confirmed that the U.S. had also struck a facility inside Venezuela, targeting loading docks used by alleged narco-trafficking boats in what marks a major escalation of the military campaign. The president has long threatened to expand the strikes to target Venezuelan facilities on land.

CNN reported that the CIA carried out a drone attack on a dock along the Venezuelan coast that U.S. authorities believe was tied to the gang Tren de Aragua. There were no casualties, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources.