In two posts, I’ve covered what was specifically wrong with President Trump’s Truth Social diatribe about Venezuela — as opposed to the general wrongness of its tone and content. Now, let’s deal with something that could be productive, although it, too, is being lost in the bombast.
The president said he was ordering a “BLOCKADE.” Depending on its extent, a blockade can be an act of war under international law. At least initially, many construed Trump’s announcement that way because he couldn’t help himself but pronounce that it would be “A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE.” If you kept reading, however, it turned out that the “TOTAL AND COMPLETE” modifiers were misleading. The Trump-ordered blockade is “OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.” In reality, then, it is a partial and incomplete blockade — or, if you prefer, a carefully targeted “quarantine.”
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