Since early December, the US Coast Guard and other military branches have boarded and taken control of five oil ships that had previously been sanctioned. On Friday the US boarded its fifth ship, although this time Trump announced that it would be returned to Venezuela to offload oil there. If the ship has oil, the oil would be impounded and potentially auctioned. With roughly 51,000 active-duty military and civilian personnel, the Coast Guard is much smaller than the other branches of the US military. “The Coast Guard is pretty busy right now.”The Coast Guard got a big injection of cash — $25 billion in additional appropriations — from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this year.

Source: Egypt Independent January 17, 2026 13:32 UTC