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Donald Trump said the US would impose a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil from Venezuela, a move that could sharply raise levies on goods from China and India, two of Caracas’s biggest oil buyers.
Trump’s announcement on Monday came just over a week before the US president plans to unveil a new tariff regime on trading partners on April 2, and follows weeks of a chaotic trade policy rollout marked by reversals and U-turns.
In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump said he was imposing the new tariff for “numerous reasons”, alleging that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”.
Trump’s announcement comes just days after Caracas agreed to begin receiving plane loads of deported migrants from the US, in a concession to the US president.
The new tariff marks a further escalation in the trade wars Trump has launched since he re-entered office.
It risks entangling the energy industry in the trade war and injecting turmoil into the oil market, something the White House has so far been keen to avoid, in case supply disruption raises petrol prices for American motorists.
Venezuela exported 660,000 barrels a day of crude globally last year. In addition to China, India and Spain are also among top buyers.
The US itself imported about 230,000 b/d from Venezuela in 2024, making the South American nation its third-biggest supplier after Canada and Mexico, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
Trump referred to the unprecedented move as a “secondary tariff”, which would take effect from what he has dubbed “liberation day” on April 2, when also said he announced recipricol tariffs on other countries.
Earlier this month, the US Treasury cancelled Chevron’s licence to operate in Venezuela, which is under broad sanctions, ordering the California-based oil group to wind down its operations within 30 days.
That licence allowed Chevron to export around 200,000 b/d last year, which Venezuela’s democratic opposition said went towards funding repression by Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Monday’s announcement came just days after Venezuela agreed to resume accepting flights carrying immigrants deported from the US. One flight carrying 199 people landed near Caracas on Sunday.
Trump has in recent weeks focused on deporting hundreds of alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the US has designated a terrorist organisation.
In his Truth Social post on Monday, Trump cited the gang and said Venezuela had been “very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse”.
Earlier this month, the US deported alleged members of to El Salvador, where president Nayib Bukele had agreed to hold them in the country’s “very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars”.
On Monday, the Department of Justice said it would deport three alleged Tren de Aragua members to Chile.
