Anatoly Kurmanaev

And he sanctioned the Venezuelan oil industry.

He made it illegal for American companies to work with Venezuela's state oil company, which owns all the oil in Venezuela.

And this made it very difficult for Venezuela to sell its oil.

And it started to increasingly rely on the so-called dark fleet or shadow fleet, basically tankers,

exists on the very edge of legality of international law, but carries sanctioned oil around the world, primarily to China.

And Venezuela's reliance on sanctioned vessels has given the current Trump administration a perfect excuse to go after its oil industry.

Well, the big fear has always been upsetting the fragile global oil market, right?

Creating volatility in the industry and raising global oil prices, which would have an impact on American pumps.

Inflation being obviously a massive political issue in the United States.

And that has prevented...

Trump and the Biden administration in part from enforcing the sanctions.

But this month, Trump decided to give it a shot.

He threw to the side the caution of the past and went big time against Venezuela's oil industry.

And so far, the effects on the oil prices has been fairly muted.

There are a lot of other different factors at play.

The economy is weak.

There's a

the prices have not bulged in any meaningful way, which has given him a carte blanche to expand his strategy to scale it up.

But there's a bigger justification in play in Italy.

Shortly after the detention of the first tanker, Trump