The seizure of a Venezuelan-linked oil tanker earlier this week represents a new pressure point the United States is applying to Nicolas Maduro, the widely considered illegitimate leader of the oil-rich country.

U.S. forces boarded the Skipper, a vessel that the Treasury Department sanctioned in 2022 when it was under a different name, on Wednesday morning in the first such mission since the U.S. began its large-scale military buildup in the Western Hemisphere over the summer.