British RAF spy planes and submarine hunters circled above as US special forces boarded an empty Russian-flagged Venezuelan oil tanker in the north Atlantic in an expensive performance verging on satire.
The Marinera was chased across the oceans, switched its nationality to Russian mid-journey, painted Moscow’s flag on its side and chugged along shadowed by one of Vladimir Putin’s submarines.
But the elite sailors beneath the sea offered the ageing tanker no real protection. And while the Kremlin has loudly condemned Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro, the Marinera’s voyage did not end with nautical fisticuffs between two nuclear powers.
It demonstrated a fake rivalry between the Kremlin and the Oval Office. And it made Britain, sandwiched between the two, look rather silly in sending its P8 Poseidon and A400M Atlas aircraft to help with the show.
Trump has claimed that Venezuela’s oil, which he says the US will now control, will be sold to the “benefit” of both the US and Venezuela.
“This oil will be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as president of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump posted on social media on Tuesday.
The Marinera has been part of a shadow fleet of tankers evading US sanctions to sell oil to China – and Trump decided he had to show strength.
But the rusting tanker was empty.
Russia funds its war against Ukraine with fossil fuel sales. Europe imports a vast quantity of Russian gas, worth about $10-25bn (£7.4bn-18.6bn) a year.
But the Kremlin also profits from the shadow fleet of at least 1,000 ships which move just over 18 per cent of the world’s oil from sanctioned countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela – often to China. It helps make Russia’s oil trade worth about $150bn (£111bn) a year.
Seizures of these oil tankers by Ukraine’s allies are very rare.
But the US has stepped up its efforts to seize Venezuelan vessels – and on Wednesday revealed it had taken control of another off the coast of South America, giving succour to its global rivals.
“The United States’ brazen use of force against Venezuela and its demand for ‘America first’ when Venezuela disposes of its own oil resources are typical acts of bullying,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a press conference.
Trump has said that while Maduro remains in a New York jail cell, his administration in Caracas remains intact. It is this administration, Trump insists, that will do what he demands – or face military attack.
Russia and China have made much of their objections to this attitude. But it suits them. And so does the drama of the seizure of the Marinera.
Putin wants to return his nation to the Soviet imperium that ruled Eastern Europe, the oil-rich Asian “stans” to the East and above all, “owned” Ukraine. China has its eyes on Taiwan and total domination of Asian trade through the South China Sea.
Trump wants to run the western hemisphere as a new American empire, which may soon, he hopes, include Canada and Greenland, Venezuela and maybe Cuba, too.
The Marinera is in that sphere. Trump showed that he can get a vassal state like Britain to help with the seizure of a ship of no consequence. With the help of supine extras, he’s playing Big Man in the West.
Putin’s submariners will now sail away, sniggering at the storm und drang ( “storm and stress”) over a bucket of rust bobbing on the surface of an ocean where the US president wants to plant his imperial banner.
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