The Trump Administration Calls Oil Tankers Carrying Venezuelan Oil “Illegal.” The Corporate Media Fails to Question the Use of the Term.

The Trump administration labels the tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in the Caribbean “illegal” in what is referred to as “Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.” It’s just assumed that Washington’s sanctions against transportation firms abide by some kind of system of international legality. But journalists should know better (and they do). They know full well that what the U.S. government decrees has no validity in international waters. Just one more example of how vocabulary coming out of Washington is manipulated in order to distort facts.