The Duran Podcast - Tanker attacks & Pirates of the Caribbean

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Tanker attacks & Pirates of the Caribbean

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the seizing of the tanker, well, off the coast of Venezuela. It's a tanker, I believe the name of the tanker is the skipper or something like that. It was allegedly carrying oil to go to or on its way to Cuba with its cargo and I guess its final destination was in the Middle East. I'm hearing Iran. I don't know. Anyway, not much detail has been given as to exactly what this tanker was doing or where it was heading towards. These are reports that I'm reading. Maybe we'll get more information about the tanker itself over the next day or two.

But the video was published by Bondi of the U.S. military seizing with this tanker. Trump said it was the biggest tanker seizing or the biggest tanker ever. seized ever in all of history. And when a reporter asked Trump, what are we going to do with the cargo, with the oil? And Trump said, I guess we keep it. Venezuela is saying this is piracy. The situation with tankers around the world is getting alarming. The attacking of tankers, the seizing of tankers, not the first tanker that has been seized. the first in Venezuela, off of the coast of Venezuela. Okay.

This is a first, but we've been seeing over the past year tankers being seized, right? Over the past three years, I remember an incident between Greece and Iran, where Greece under the orders of the United States seized a tanker. And what did Iran do? They seized two. Yeah. The Greek tankers, right? This is becoming very, very alarming and it's not only the seizing of tankers, we're seeing

tankers attacked. We had a tanker attack in the Black Sea as well yesterday, according to Ukrainian reports. There's been a video published in the Black Sea of a tanker that belongs to the Russian shadow fleet. So not a Russian tanker, my understanding of it, it's just a shadow fleet tanker. So I guess these are fair game as well. now, just attacking Shadowfleets. And not only in the Black Sea, last week, we had one of these Shadow Fleet tankers

off the coast of Africa that was attacked. Yes. Where are we heading with all of this? Well, we're heading into a very difficult situation altogether. But before I've discussed that, I mean, I'd make just one fairly obvious point, which, to my surprise, very, very few people are making. The entire justification that the administration, the Trump administration, has given up to now, for this entire operation in the Caribbean and against, you know, off the coast of Venezuela,

is that it is an anti-drugs trafficking operation. It's all about stopping the trafficking of drugs. Where does seizing an oil tanker fit into this? Are we asked to believe that a huge oil tanker is involved in drugs shipment? I mean, so far as I'm aware, the administration isn't even saying this. So we can already see that this operation is evolving and it is evolving beyond its original justification. Are we going to stick with that justification?

Are we going to hear more about the story, about pursuing drugs cartels and all of that? Or are we now going to sit here something else? Is there some new story that is going to appear over the next? couple of days or weeks to explain the presence of this huge part of the US fleet off the coast of Venezuela. So just say, I think, you know, we shouldn't overlook the fact that we've just seen an incredibly aggressive act take place against a tanker, the property of, well, whichever business owns it, apparently without much legal explanation. or excuse.

In fact, no legal explanation or excuse that I can see. And already it looks as if this has absolutely nothing to do with the real justification for this whole operation of the Venezuelan coast. That's the first thing I wanted to say. The second is that we discussed in recent programs that what the United States seems to be trying to do is to stop Venezuelan oil deliveries to Cuba. This is at least one part of its purpose in trying to change the political system in Venezuela. Now, it's starting to look to me as if there's been a lot of discussion and dissension within the administration about whether to conduct an actual regime change operation in Venezuela.

itself. And I wonder, I wonder whether what has happened is that the hardliners in the administration have been forced to step back. And rather than mount attacks, direct attacks on Venezuela itself, decapitation strikes and all of that, and overthrow, try to overthrow Maduro himself, what they're doing instead is that they've decided to mount some kind of sea blockade of Venezuela. And unamounced sea blocker. sees ships, tankers involved in the Venezuelan oil export industry. And from their point of view, that has two advantages. Firstly, it chokes off the Venezuelan economy.

It deprives it of revenue, which is obvious, and compounds the economic crisis in Venezuela. And, of course, it has a secondary effect, which is that it creates an economic crisis in Cuba. So we have this kind of play, perhaps, underway. And, well, certainly the United States has enough assets in the Caribbean to do this. In fact, it is a massive overabundance of assets in the Caribbean to do it. It has a supercarrier, the Gerald Ford on station. It is seven ages-class missile destroyers. I mean, it's got huge forces, naval forces.

So it is able to mount this kind of blockade of the Venezuelan coast, of Venezuelan shipping, if that is its purpose. Mounting a sea blockade is an act of war. I mean, I think that's the first thing to say. Seizing ships on the high seas is piracy. I've had this, I've checked this, attacking ships going about their peaceful business, commercial ships on the high seas. is piracy, it is actually the crime of piracy, which is an international crime, except it can be justified in wartime. And if it's carried out by a state, it is an act of war by the state that is doing it against the state whose ship is being seized or whose commerce is being

interrupted. And by the way, the country and the government that played the biggest role in getting all this concept established, just as a matter of historical interest, is the United States, which strongly opposed the British practice of seizing American ships that were trading with France during the Napoleonic Wars. So just to say, The United States pushed back very strongly against what the British were doing. And it was one of the things that eventually led to the War of 1812, which I'm not going to discuss between Britain and the United States. So anyway, so this is piracy.

It is an act of war, but it looks to me like it is working towards mounting some kind of seat blockade. What you are saying about seizure of tankers is absolutely true. Now, it started in the Gulf and in the Eastern Mediterranean, and it originally targeted Iran's oil exports. And as you correctly said, Iran took retaliatory action and continues to do so. So there's been a long game of countries, Iran and its enemies, seizing tankers, doing sort of things. And this has been going on for some years. It's now escalated beyond that. We see the Ukrainians attacking ships that deliver Russian oil exports.

And this is, again, brazen piracy on the high seas. the attack on the tanker off the coast of Africa can only have been done with the assistance of a Western country. Because I've had people tell me, you know, the Ukrainians can send drones, all that distance. It is impossible. I've checked into this. The attack can only have been mounted from positions in West Africa. And the Russians believe that France played the role in this, and I believe that they're right. I mean, it makes the most logical sense to assume that it was the French who were involved in that operation.

And we know what an incredibly aggressive personality Macron himself was. And remember, he ordered French troops to board a tanker that was taking oil from Russia to China and the tanker was boarded and it was all supposedly being used as a base to launch drones against European facilities, except that they found no evidence of this when they examined the tanker and Macron very embarrassed how to release it. So it seems to me that he's now humiliated and embarrassed by that affair. So given that he's Macron and he's reckless and he's a gambler, he's gone a whole step further, and he's now aiding the Ukrainians to launch attacks on ships that trade oil from Russia. It is inevitable that others are going to start taking

retaliatory action. Iran has done it. The Americans are linking in some nebulous way this tanker to Iran too. So if there's any connection with Iran, and it may be that this tanker was owned, by entities in Iran, the Iranians have already showed that they have an ability and a willingness to start seizing tankers. The Russians, for their part, have already provided naval escorts to ships that trade with them. There's been incidents now where this has happened. Putin recently spoke about the Russians taking retaliatory measures against tankers or commercial ships of countries that they suspect are doing this thing to shipping that trades with them. He's even floated the possibility of a naval blockade of Adessa.

And this thing is escalating and it is escalating out of control. If somebody wants to disrupt the oil trade and push up oil prices again, and we're going through a glut at the moment, but people always exaggerating, rate gluts, oil gluts. I followed oil gluts, well, most of my life. And with the price of oil, it goes up and down because when the price is up, there's a tendency to overproduce, and then an awful lot of oil sweeps into the market, and that lowers prices, and then that leads to overconsumption, and the glut turns into a shortage. This is a constant thing with oil, with the oil markets, and gluts never last very long, by the way, just to say,

if somebody wants to push up oil prices and disrupt trade in energy products and oil products, they're going about it in exactly the right way. So that's where this is going. Well, Putin has given his warning, a public warning. He said that if this continues, then he is going to take action. with a possible blockade and possible attacking of the ports. Yes. He said that.

Yes. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll see what Putin does. Once again, these are not Russian tankers. No. Not Russian-owned tankers. No. Right?

These are tankers under the flags of other countries. Absolutely. And I imagine carrying oil in several cases, that was not Russian. I mean, because Novorosisk is an international terminal for oil. It receives oil from Kazakhstan and from Turkmenistan. By the way, Putin is just about to visit Turkmenistan. He is traveling there, I believe, today. So oil gets traded through that port from several countries.

And the United States companies, oil companies, still have a presence in Norvorosis. It's a terminal because it's part of their... oil trade, there is a carve out in the sanctions to allow them to maintain the presence then. But anyway, there it is. Well, we'll see what Turkey does as well, because all this is happening in the Black Sea, and this is also hurting Turkey. Absolutely. And Turkey has also issued warnings.

So we'll see what Turkey does. We'll see what China does. Yes. Because this is also hurting China, right? Yes. So we'll see what China does. Exactly. You know, Ukraine is attacking tankers.

Yes. And forget about the whole shadow fleet, non-exam. Since you've explained what the Shadow Fleet is, what it means, just not being insured by Lloyds of London. Yes. But, you know, this is an attack on multiple countries. Well, indeed, one of the time. And they're holding back because the United States tells them to hold back, right? Turkey doesn't do anything because the United States orders Turkey not to do anything.

And China, well, you know, China is taking its usual line of restraint. Putin is also showing an incredible amount of restraint. Keep in mind, Alexander, that they've also floated out NATO, Estonia, Finland, the Baltics, they've also floated out a blockade of Russia in the Baltic. So they've also floated that out as well. So we may be seeing that coming as well, right? That's what all of this could be building up towards. Because if they see that Russia doesn't act, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to. going to get emboldered and then do more.

What Macron is doing. Macron is saying, well, Putin's not going to do anything anyway. So let's hit this ship off the coast of Africa. That's what Marcon is saying. Absolutely. But they're also, as you rightly say, gambling with the reaction of other countries. Beyond Russia, China as well. One of those tankers that was attacked in the Black Sea was owned by a company based in Hong Kong,

which makes me think that it was Chinese owned. I mean, it seems logical that's a tanker that. is based in and has a Chinese, has a Hong Kong company as it registered as its owner, probably is Chinese owned. So, you know, that doesn't automatically follow because Hong Kong is an international board and all sorts of people, Greeks and Malays and all sorts of other people own companies in Hong Kong which might own ships. This is a very murky business altogether, so it's very opaque sometimes.

But it makes everything more expensive. Everything becomes more expensive because of this. That is exactly the point. I mean, if you want to disrupt the international oil market, then, of course, you're going about it the right way. I mean, already, already we have a situation where inflation is becoming increasingly sticky, right around the West, we see that attempts to bring down inflation to the 2% level that it used to have before the pandemic, that it's becoming increasingly difficult.

And one of the reasons that this is the case is because of disruption, the disruption to world trade. Not just trade in oil, by the way, but all world trade. I've discussed this before with somebody that I know who works in the world of shipping, tell me this. You know, if you sent your ship to Karachi to load with wheat, for example. And you then discover that the owner that is, sorry, the company that is providing supplying the wheat, has some kind of connection to another company, which might all. have a connection to trade with Russia, then you might be worried and you might say to yourself, well, that might lead to sanctions against me. And probably, because you're a ship owner,

you will go ahead and you will carry that freight of grain, but you will demand higher prices. You will high for the carriage of the grain. And so this is creating cumulatively, greater and greater costs in international trade. And of course, they're passed down to the consumer, which is why one of the reasons we have inflation and one of the reasons why across the industrialized, well, the rapidly deindustrializing West, we have the cost of livings crisis

that people are talking about. Yeah, so you said this has two effects for Trump with regards to Venezuela, the Venezuelan economy, it squeezes the Venezuelan economy, and it squeezes the Cuban economy. It actually has four effects. If you think about it, it justifies the presence of that U.S. force. Well, indeed. Right? So not Trump can say, well, they're there because they have to, you know, take out the boats that are carrying the drugs, and then they have to seize the tankers that are carrying the oil, which has some connection to drugs. I don't know how they'll spin that, but they'll spin it. Okay, I'm sure Rubio is going to say, well, it's the oil that funds Iran, which funds

Hezbollah. And so if we take away the oil, then we take away the funding. Okay, they'll piece something together there. And plus, we get to keep the oil. So the United States is making money. They'll put something together. So it justifies the cost and the presence of this massive military force. And it also gives Trump in his mind, and I'm sure he's being told this, by the Susie Wiles of his administration, that it gives Trump his peace through strength material. Well, indeed. He can market this as peace through strength.

They put out, they put out the video. That's why Pam Bondi put out that video. No. Right? She put it out on purpose because it's all marketing. So you put that on the social media. You show the U.S. military, boarding the tanker, seizing the tanker. And then Trump gets in front of the media.

And he says, you see peace through strength. We've seized a tanker. This tanker was going to lead to X amount of, of fentanyl entering the United States. And there you have it. So, I mean, this is what this gives them. If indeed they are starting to maybe walk back or delay significantly some sort of military operation. But I will say this to wrap up with the video, at the same time that all this is happening,

you have the other narrative of Machado and her escape via boat. So not all the boats are blockaded. She did manage to somehow get a boat because she was trapped in Venezuela. She was doing podcasts every week. Yeah. But she was still in hiding in Venezuela. And she put on a wig. And this is true.

It was what the Wall Street journalist saying. She put on a wig. And she went through like multiple checkpoints with this wig, got on a boat, made it through the blockade. And she ended up in Norway. She missed the ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize. But she's in Norway. Her daughter accepted the prize.

on her behalf. It gave me Iraq incubator vibes, the daughter, right? A lot of Iraq 1.0 vibes, that whole ceremony. But she didn't make it to the ceremony, but she still ended up in Norway. And so you have the side narrative of Machado, which leads me to believe that there are still forces, very powerful forces in the U.S. government, which are saying, come on, Trump, we got everything set up, we got our side story, we got Machado, we got her great escape. Let's move forward with this regime change. No, absolutely. I mean, the regime change agenda is not, is not, has not been cancelled. And of course, if there is eventually a blockade of Venezuela, an economic and sea blockade of Venezuela, then of course, that is undoubtedly intended eventually to lead to regime change.

That is the objective of it. It seems to be running behind schedule. This is all that you can say about this. But the thing to say about regime change operations is that when the United States starts them, it never can end them. It can never stop. They just continue going. And the pressure to see them through is always there.

and in the end it always mounts. So the fact that there may be a delay in this regime change operation absolutely does not mean that it has been called off. The other interesting thing is what is Cuba going to do? I've discussed this already. Cuba used to import oil. It basically spurned Russian offers to supply Cuba with oil because they had this very close connection.

to Venezuela. What are they going to do now? It would not be a problem for the Russians to supply Cuba with oil. I mean, they could send, Cuba is small. The amount of imports Cuba would need would be a fraction of overall Russian trading oil. By the way, before we wrap up, just to say that we We now have definite information that despite the sanctions on Luke oil and Rosneft, Russian overseas trade in oil has barely been dented. The Russians have been able to maintain their exports at about the same level as before those sanctions were imposed. You might not get that impression from the media coverage, but they found workarounds. They've had to pay people discounts, but they have been able to maintain the scale of their oil exports.

And Russia's oil exports are so enormous that as a supplying Cuba is not going to be a major drain on their ability to export oil. And for all kinds of reasons, I think they would want to do that. Will Cuba agree? How will it happen? We'll just have to see. Will those boats be seized? Yes.

Yes, but I think in this case, I think in this case, we probably would be seeing Russian naval escorts provided. And I mean, the Russians have already provided escorts for some of that, some merchant ships which trade with them. And I mean, we've had as a result Russian warships escorting tankers and ships going through the channel. How long can Russia keep this up, though? I mean, how long can Russia and China? Why would they want to continue to do this? I mean, you know, you are now having to escort ships around the world with your warships. I mean, technically, they could do this indefinitely.

Yeah, but, but, but, but, I mean, obviously it's, it's not what they would I really want to do. It's not, well, it's a temperate. It's a kind of solution, but it's a very, very inefficient solution. The efficient solution is to get this whole thing to stop, but in order to get it to stop, you do need to start taking retaliatory. measures and we'll see whether they do. They said that they will do. We'll see what they actually do. The oil, the convoyes, the actual convoys with the warships, the Russians have said they would do it and they have been doing it. And it has had an effect. Ships that have been protected have not been attacked. But whether the Russians will take more actions, whether the Russians will take more actions, whether

whether Putin's warnings will be put into effect, what China is going to do, because China has particular concerns. I mean, Russia, to repeat again, and it's a point we've made many times, is so sufficient. It can keep going, even if it doesn't export at all, even imports now. It is mainly covered in. But China is a major trading power. It depends on trade. It's just run today, and this year, in the first of 11 months of the year, a $1 trillion trade surplus. So China needs to trade. It needs to import raw materials and goods, and it needs to export finished products. So what is China going to do, given that some of these actions do seem to be ultimately targeted at them?

Brian Balletic has done a good video on this, by the way. So, China can take, has ample retaliatory measures at its disposal. We're talking about naval protections. China has perhaps the biggest fleet in the world in terms of numbers of warships now. It's also got a supercarrier of its own. But China can also take much other retaliatory steps too, as we've seen. It's shown a certain willingness to take them. will it do so in this situation?

I suppose it depends on how far this situation escalates. They better do something soon because this situation is escalating. It is escalating. It's going to get out of control soon. Well, I agree. I agree. I mean, these things always get out of control. And again, China has a tendency not to understand,

because they're in some ways very new to this game. They perhaps don't quite understand how far these situations can get out of control. But anyway, we'll see what they do. All right, we'll end the video there, the dirand.orgas.com. We're on X-Wr on telegram. We're on Rumble.

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