Maduro Taunts U.S. Pressure As Washington Seizes Tanker Off Venezuelan Coast: 'We're Ready to Knock the Empire's Teeth Out'

Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro said that the country is prepared "to knock the teeth out of the North American empire if necessary," responding to escalating U.S. military pressure in the Caribbean and the seizure of a tanker near Venezuelan waters.

Speaking at a rally in Caracas, Maduro urged supporters to remain ready for confrontation. "The same productive hands we have are the hands that grab rifles, tanks, missiles to defend this sacred land from any invading empire," he said, calling on Venezuelans to stand "as warriors."

His remarks came hours after President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces had intercepted what he described as a large tanker off Venezuela's coast. "We just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela... the biggest ever seen," Trump said at the White House, adding that "other things" would follow. Bloomberg reported that the action targeted a stateless vessel that had docked in Venezuela.

Maduro called the U.S. military deployment a "threat" and said global opinion was shifting against Washington. The U.S. operation has intensified since September, when Trump authorized expanded maritime actions against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.

The tensions have coincided with the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, where Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado — absent from the event — was represented by her daughter. Human rights organizations say detentions in Venezuela have risen sharply as pressure from Washington increases.

A New York Times report published earlier this week provides a striking contrast to Wednesday's more confrontational tone by Maduro as it reveals that he has been changing locations frequently and altering his communication habits to avoid a potential precision strike by the United States. According to the report, he has increased reliance on Cuban security personnel and expanded counterintelligence cooperation with Havana.

Maduro also used Wednesday's rally to demand an end to what he called "illegal and brutal interventionism" by Washington, invoking a series of past U.S. conflicts, as El Mundo reports. "No more Vietnam, no more Somalia, no more Iraq, no more Afghanistan, no more Libya," he said, framing his remarks as a call for regional sovereignty.

He further directed attacks at foreign governments and domestic opponents, including criticism of leaders in Argentina and Panama, and renewed his verbal offensive against María Corina Machado. Maduro told supporters that Venezuela "has the reason and the strength" to resist outside pressure and would respond to any escalation "without hesitation."