The D Brief: Trump plans oil seizure; US forces seize tanker; Greenland seizure floated; Experts pan Maduro seizure; And a bit more.

Three days after sending the military to abduct Venezuela’s leader, the U.S. president said that he intends to seize at least 30 million barrels of Venezuelan oil, which “will be sold at market price, and that money will be controlled by me.” President Donald Trump announced the development on Tuesday evening as a deal he’s worked out with the “interim authorities in Venezuela.” According to Trump, the amount could rise to 50 million barrels. That much oil would be worth $1.8 billion to $3 billion, the New York Times reported, adding: “There was no immediate comment from the Venezuelan authorities.”

“I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately,” Trump said. “It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States” so that the president can personally “ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States,” Trump said in his post. 

Several legal experts noted online that Trump’s plan seems to openly violate Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that only “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” 

Others pointed to Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, also known as the foreign emoluments clause, which reads “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” 

Still others said that Trump’s plan appears to be an example of modern piracy enabled by the U.S. military, while other concerned Americans were more blunt still—observing, e.g., “Forget the impact on Venezuela, this is full-blown dictatorship in the USA.”

New: American Coast Guard and special forces have reportedly seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker (known as Marinera) trying to evade sanctions during a transit in the North Atlantic, Reuters and NBC News as well as TankerTrackers.com reported Wednesday morning. 

The tanker was originally known as the Bella-1 and slipped through the U.S. military’s Venezuelan blockade two weeks ago. U.S. Coast Guard forces have been attempting to board it, and were unsuccessful until Wednesday. 

“This appeared to be the first time in recent memory that the U.S. military has attempted to seize a Russian-flagged vessel,” Reuters reports. The U.S. interception marks the third sanctions-evading tanker seized since December. 

Russian officials released a statement of “concern” Tuesday, NBC News reports. And the Wall Street Journal reported Russia had dispatched a submarine to escort the tanker, though it appears the sub either did not reach the Marinera in time or its escort mission was ineffective. “For reasons that remain unclear to us, the Russian vessel is receiving heightened attention from U.S. and NATO military forces that is clearly disproportionate to its peaceful status,” Moscow’s foreign ministry said in that Tuesday statement.  

“At least three other sanctioned oil tankers that were operating near Venezuela in recent weeks have changed their flags to Russia,” including “the Malak, now renamed the Sintez; the Dianchi, now the Expander; and the Veronica, now the Galileo,” NBC reports. 

Also developing: One other oil tanker has also been intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard in Latin American waters, U.S. officials told Reuters, though it’s unclear just yet which vessel that is. 

Coverage continues below…

Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter focused on developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. It’s more important than ever to stay informed, so we’d like to take a moment to thank you for reading. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1942, the submarine USS Pollack torpedoed a Japanese cargo ship in Japanese waters, the first victory for the Navy’s Pacific submarine force.

The Justice Department approved a memo authorizing Trump’s military operation to abduct Maduro, which allegedly killed at least 80 people and wounded at least a half-dozen U.S. troops. However, it’s unclear just yet what’s in that memo, the New York Times reported Tuesday evening. “But Attorney General Pam Bondi promised members of Congress in briefings this week that the administration would share the memo with lawmakers,” Charlie Savage of the Times writes. 

Reminder: The Trump administration says it did not need to notify lawmakers before the military helped abduct Maduro because that was a “law enforcement operation.” 

However, “That’s wrong on multiple counts,” argues Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice. “When U.S. military aircraft drop bombs on another country, killing 80 people in the process, that’s a use of military force, regardless of the intent. Even [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth described it as a ‘joint military and law enforcement raid’ rather than a pure law enforcement action. The only question is whether there is some inherent power under Article II of the Constitution for the president to use military force without congressional authorization when the purpose is to execute a criminal arrest warrant. The answer is no,” Goitein says. 

“If you need further convincing, imagine that another country flew war planes over the U.S., dropped bombs that killed 80 Americans, and captured two U.S. citizens who were wanted on criminal charges in that country...Would the U.S. government concede that the bombing of the United States by another country’s military was simply part of a law enforcement operation and constituted an act of ‘self-defense’? Or would we view it as an act of war?”

Goitein admits she was hesitant to even clarify these legal considerations, “because even engaging in this analysis risks dignifying the claim that the purpose of the military attack was merely to execute criminal arrest warrants. That might have been part of the purpose, but it plainly wasn’t the whole story.” Read the rest of her argument, here.  

She’s not alone. Three other legal experts at Just Security arrived at a similar conclusion, citing “the nature and location of the operations, the expected (and realized) risk of U.S. casualties, the known risks of escalation, the operation’s purpose of removal of a sitting head of State, the use of lethal force against two States’ security forces, and the context of other military actions (threats of force, naval blockade) before, during, and after the operation took place.” 

Following the administration’s classified briefing about the Maduro abduction with lawmakers on Monday, New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen said she has many more questions that were left unanswered. 

“What now must happen—and what the briefing lacked—is a clear, well-informed diplomatic roadmap with benchmarks for Venezuela to meet, clear timelines and the right tools to help develop and transition Venezuela following this military mission,” Shaheen said in a statement Tuesday. “I remain concerned that we are not there yet, and we will not get there by trading one authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, for another illegitimate authoritarian leader who has served alongside him as part of his repressive regime.” 

“Amidst this uncertainty and instability, the President is threatening to further overextend our military by threatening action on other parts of the world and alienating our allies,” she said, and stressed, “The onus is on President Trump to explain to the American people what is truly going on in our own hemisphere and how he intends to keep our nation safe and secure.” The same day Shaheen attended that classified briefing, the president had already moved on—and reportedly asked aides for updated plans to acquire Greenland. 

Update: Trump is mulling options to acquire Greenland, including possible military operations, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” Leavitt said in a statement to multiple outlets Tuesday, including States Newsroom. 

“The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal,” Leavitt said. 

Greenland reax: Our country is “not something that can be annexed or taken over simply because someone feels like it,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a statement Tuesday evening. The leaders of Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom also issued a joint statement in support of Greenland’s sovereignty on Tuesday. Canada issued its own as well later in the day.  

SecState Rubio to lawmakers: Trump really just wants to buy Greenland, the Wall Street Journal reported after Rubio’s remarks to lawmakers Monday.  

Rewind: You may recall Trump has been eyeing Greenland since his first term in office. But during our own visit to Denmark in 2019, Danish officials told Defense One in a line they frequently repeated in public around that time, “Greenland is open for business, but not for sale.” There are no indications their position has changed. 

Expert reax: Given a defense agreement signed in 1951 by the U.S. and Denmark, “The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” Danish researcher Mikkel Runge Olesen told the Times on Tuesday. The Guardian has a bit more on that agreement, as well as the history of U.S. military bases in Greenland, here. 

U.S. lawmakers’ reax: “When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., co-chairs of the Senate’s NATO Observer Group, said in a statement Tuesday. They added, “Our alliances deter aggressors and share the burden of collective defense. We must stay focused on the real threats before us and work with our allies, not against them, to advance our shared security. As we confront the challenges of the 21st century, we do so alongside allies like Denmark who stand with us by choice, not by compulsion.”

Panning out: “The resources of the most powerful military in the world are being marshaled in service of making memes declaring, “THIS IS OUR HEMISPHERE,’” writes tech and media writer Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic, referencing a slew of online memes from the chronically-online members of the Trump administration, especially in the hours after the Maduro abduction. 

And that flood of social media content, which he argues is “not an actual form of governance, nor is it a kind of policy, but it is performative speech that’s supposed to signify action and, in the case of the Venezuela raid, strength” appears to be happening “because the country’s leaders think it’s good theater, and in a postliterate political era, the spectacle is propulsive.”

Additional reading: “Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System,” from Stacie Goddard, a political scientist from Wellesley College, and Abraham Newman of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, writing in November for the Cambridge University Press. 

Related news developments: 

• “Trump warns Venezuela to cooperate or risk new U.S. military attack,” NBC reported Tuesday after Trump’s remarks to Republicans at the Kennedy Center in Washington; 
• “Fear grips Caracas as a new wave of repression is unleashed in Venezuela,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday; 
• “Only Denmark and Greenland can decide on island's future, says Canada,” Reuters reported Tuesday from Ottawa; 
• “US, observers watch for cyber, disinformation campaigns in wake of Venezuela raid,” Nextgov reported Tuesday; 
• And “US factory sector contracts for 10th straight month in December” as input costs rose in response to Trump’s import tariffs, Reuters reported Tuesday. 

Etc.

Now for something completely different, PBS aired a new episode in its American Experience series, this time focusing on the aftermath of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan in 1945 entitled, “Bombshell.” 

The tease: “Eighty years after the devastating atomic bombings that ushered in the nuclear age, Bombshell explores how the U.S. government manipulated the narrative about the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Through propaganda, censorship and the co-opting of the press, the government presented a benevolent picture of atomic power, minimizing the horrific human toll.” 

Catch the full 82-minute movie streaming on PBS, here.