ACTIVISTS today slammed the piratical seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by the United States.

The order issued by President Donald Trump for US forces to take control of the Cuba-bound tanker on Wednesday marks the latest push by Washington to increase pressure on President Nicolas Maduro, who has been charged, without evidence, with narcoterrorism in the US.

The US has built up a massive military presence in the region and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” President Trump told reporters at the White House, later saying that “it was seized for a very good reason.”

President Trump did not offer additional details and when asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, said: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the act “a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”

“Trump’s attitude has made it clear that the policy of aggression against our country is part of a deliberate plan to plunder our energy wealth,” the statement said.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said: “Cuba expresses its full support for the Venezuelan government’s denunciation and strongly condemns the assault on an oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

“This constitutes an act of piracy, a violation of international law and an escalation of aggression against that sister nation.”

Geopolitical analyst Ben Norton accused the US of being “run by imperialist pirates,” while co-founder of women-led peace campaigner Codepink, Medea Benjamin, said the seizure of the tanker was an “act of 21st-century piracy.

“This isn’t about drugs. It’s about regime change and provoking a war in Latin America. Americans don’t want this. Seventy per cent oppose intervention in Venezuela.”

She said: “Cuba needs oil, not blockades. Venezuela needs peace, not warships. Hands off Venezuela. Hands off Cuba.

Ajamu Baraka, an international human rights organiser, said: “It should be incredible but it is not, that elements of US media would still give credibility to the notion that the US, a nation embracing fascism and supporting an ongoing racist genocide would have benevolent pro-democracy goals in Venezuela.”