Keep pulling the thread on Ryan Berg.
The U.S. naval force in the Southern Caribbean enacted a quarantine on sanctioned ghost fleet tankers that were transporting Venezuelan oil primarily to China.
On January 2nd and 3rd, the U.S. military conducted an operation to capture Nicolas Maduro and his wife from a bunker complex at Fort Teyuna, near Caracas, to serve an indictment from the Southern District Court of New York.
President Trump has stated the United States intends to run Venezuela and extract oil from its reserves for years.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has outlined a three-phase plan for Venezuela: economic stabilization, political and civil society recovery, and a transition to elections.
The United States intends to use its naval quarantine of Venezuela to ensure the interim authorities pursue pro-U.S. policies and reduce relationships with China, Russia, and Iran.
The United States plans to exclusively market and sell Venezuelan oil, using its naval quarantine to prevent any other country from doing so.
President Trump has indicated that Venezuelan oil shipments to China can continue, but China will have to pay full market price instead of a sanctioned-barrel discount.
The Trump administration views its control over the approximately 700,000 barrels of oil per day that China typically imports from Venezuela as a key source of geopolitical leverage.
The Trump administration has asserted a "Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine," a 21st-century policy focused on countering foreign ownership of strategic assets in the Americas.
The new U.S. national security strategy commits to rebalancing American military forces to the Western Hemisphere, which could involve maintaining a carrier battle group in the Caribbean.
The Trump administration views the Western Hemisphere as a strategic weakness for the United States due to significant influence from China, Russia, and Iran.
Since August 2025, the Trump administration has overseen one of the largest naval buildups in the history of the Western Hemisphere.