Last year, President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to start seizing Venezuelan oil tankers on the high seas. The move marked a fundamental shift in American economic statecraft - the first time in two decades that Washington blurred the line between economic pressure and military force.
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Peter E. Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown's Institute of International Economic Law and former senior director at the National Security Council, has argued that the shift amounts to a new era of "hybrid economic warfare," "Hvylya" reports.
Trump's reason for the shift is straightforward, Harrell argued: "he has to, at least if he wants to impose economic pressure on Washington's oil-exporting adversaries." In December, Trump declared a "total and complete blockade" of sanctioned tankers carrying Venezuelan oil. The Navy has since seized or detained at least ten tankers with ties to Venezuela. The Coast Guard has also intercepted at least one vessel bound for Cuba.
U.S. allies have followed suit. India seized several U.S.-sanctioned Iranian tankers in February, and France detained a sanctioned Russian ship in January, with another earlier this month. The pattern suggests a broader Western pivot toward physical enforcement of economic restrictions.
Harrell warned that the strategy carries serious risks. "A wholehearted embrace of hybrid economic warfare risks foreign reprisal," he wrote, noting that adversaries could respond by seizing American cargo ships - a scenario Washington has not had to worry about for the past two decades.
The Georgetown scholar argued that the United States needs a formal doctrine for when and how it uses military force to back up sanctions. Without one, Washington risks "inviting economic, cyber, and even military retaliation" while setting a precedent that adversaries could exploit to seize U.S. property outside armed conflict. "Hvylya" previously examined why China cannot afford to antagonize the United States despite its growing role as a buyer of sanctioned oil.