Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro during a rally in Caracas earlier this month.Ariana Cubillos/The Associated Press

Michael Byers teaches global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia.

Amid a months-long conflict where the United States has been enacting air strikes against small boats off the coast of Venezuela – which many experts have deemed illegal – the Donald Trump administration last week tried a less violent, more legally acceptable way to press Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down. On Dec. 11, U.S. forces seized a tanker carrying oil from Venezuela to China, and while this was decried by Caracas as piracy, the action was consistent with international law: The ship was pretending to be registered in Guyana, and, by flying a “false flag,” had rendered itself stateless.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump upped the ante by declaring a blockade on all “sanctioned” tankers from Venezuela. To be supportable, that approach would have to be limited to the newly emerged “dark fleet” of more than 1,000 tankers. But the first approach – seizing an individual tanker flying a false flag – creates an opportunity for other countries to insist that this fleet poses intolerable safety, environmental and economic risks, and that international law........

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