Shelby Holliday

was seizing tankers and the oil that was on them to exert pressure on the Maduro regime.

Now that he's out of power and there's this interim government in Caracas, the U.S.

has indicated that it's going to continue seizing tankers and continue seizing oil.

To exert pressure on this new leadership, Secretary Rubio said the best leverage the U.S.

has is the oil.

And so it will continue enforcing what it calls this quarantine of Venezuelan oil to get what the U.S.

wants.

That's a very good question.

So this tanker, which is formerly known as the Bella One, an analyst said it was empty.

It didn't have any oil on it.

The Coast Guard continued to pursue it.

And halfway across the Atlantic, this ship changed its registration to Russia, and it claimed Russian protection.

Russia asked the U.S.

to back off of the ship.

The U.S.

clearly did not do that.

It boarded the ship this morning with a ton of firepower and special forces.

And this rusty old oil tanker became a flashpoint in U.S.-Russia relations.

One of the strategies that the U.S.

has articulated is not just that it wants to control Venezuela, but it wants to get rid of Russian influence, Iranian influence, Chinese influence across the Western Hemisphere.