The US stands in “gross violation of international law” and, more damning in a world where foreign policy debates are conducted over social media via petulant, bite-sized soundbites, is acting like a “bully” in the Caribbean, where Donald Trump has the US Navy chasing dark fleet vessels around in a bid to choke off Nicolas Maduro’s oil revenue.

The quotes come from China’s foreign ministry, where a spokesperson accused Trump of “arbitrarily seizing” other countries’ assets, in this case ships and crude.

Although I agree that Trump’s “blockade” is yet another manifestation of the US military infringing upon other countries’ sovereignty (thereby undercutting America’s claim to the moral high ground vis-à-vis Ukraine), the tanker seizures (plural now) aren’t “arbitrary.”

The Skipper, which Trump commandeered last week, is a sanctioned vessel known to traffic in contraband (and we’ll forget for a moment that what counts as “contraband” is itself an arbitrary determination of the US government) and so’s the Bella 1, which was on its way to dock and load in Venezuela when it was intercepted and forced to make a run for it.

If you’re curious, Bella 1‘s owned by Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, which is based in Panama. Three years ago, OFAC designated the company for “carrying sanctioned cargo on behalf of” a Hezbollah front to buyers in Southeast Asia.

According to the US, Bella 1 wasn’t flying a valid national flag when it was confronted by US forces waiving a seizure warrant over the weekend. That made it a stateless vessel, justifying the US military’s decision to board it. Or try to board it. As of this writing, it’s in the wind and sending out dozens of distress signals with the US in “active pursuit.”

The Bella 1 drama began just hours after the Coast Guard boarded another vessel, the unsanctioned Centuries. It was loaded with as much as two million barrels of Venezuelan oil belonging, apparently, to a Chinese trader. Dozens of crew members were Chinese, the US said.

Despite not being officially sanctioned, Centuries is “guilty” as charged. It’s no secret that the vessel hauls crude for Maduro and other pariah regimes, and even if it was (a secret), it’s not now. If the US intends to intercept any and all vessels known or suspected to be a part of the global shadow fleet, sanctioned or not, that’ll be an economic death knell for the regime in Caracas.

Although Beijing’s making some noise — the foreign ministry said Trump should leave Maduro alone to “develop mutually beneficial” economic arrangements with other sovereign countries, a reference to China’s ongoing purchases of Venezuelan oil — Beijing has no options. What are they going to do? Sail the PLA halfway around the world and engage the US in old school naval warfare?

More importantly — and unfortunately for Maduro — China doesn’t need that oil. It’s nice to have and I’m sure they get it on the cheap, but by no means is it crucial comprising, at most, 6% of Beijing’s overall imports. By contrast, substantially all of the illicit oil Venezuela manages to sell goes to China. If the Centuries experience is any indication, Trump intends to cut off, entirely, Maduro’s oil exports to Xi.

If your question’s whether these tankers can outfox the US Navy, the answer’s a hard “no.” It’d be an exaggeration to say anybody can track these vessels in real-time from their laptop, but… well, suffice to say it’s 2025 and this is a pretty small area. If the US wants to prevent Venezuela from shipping oil, the US can absolutely do that. Logistically, anyway. Whether or not Trump can do it legally is irrelevant because… well, because who’s going to stop him? What options are there for, say, China other than bringing it up at a Security Council meeting?

In any event, Trump’s trying to shut-in Venezuela’s production. If he succeeds, Maduro will lose access to his only source of hard currency revenue. According to Bloomberg’s semi-famous Cafe Con Leche Index — which measures changes in the price of a cup of coffee in Caracas — annual inflation in the Venezuelan capital was over 550% this month.

For now, Maduro remains defiant. “The trade of our oil will continue,” he said last week. “For centuries and centuries, the sovereign people of Venezuela will be the absolute owner of the land, the soil and all of its riches.”