CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s parliament on Tuesday approved a measure that criminalizes a broad range of activities that can hinder navigation and commerce in the South American country, such as the seizure of oil tankers.
The bill — introduced, debated and approved within two days in the National Assembly — follows this month's seizures by U.S. forces of two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in international waters. The seizures are the latest strategy in U.S. President Donald Trump's four-month pressure campaign on Venezuela's leader Nicolás Maduro.
The tankers are part of what the Trump administration has said is a fleet Venezuela uses to evade U.S. economic sanctions.
The unicameral assembly, which is controlled by Venezuela's ruling party, did not publish drafts on Tuesday nor the final version of the measure. But as read on the floor, the bill calls for fines and prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone who promotes, requests, supports, finances or participates in “acts of piracy, blockades or other international illegal acts” against commercial entities operating with the South American country.
Venezuela's political opposition, including Nobel Peace laureate María Corina Machado, has expressed support for Trump's Venezuela policy, including the seizure of tankers.
The bill, which now awaits Maduro’s signature, also instructs the executive branch to come up with “incentives and mechanisms for economic, commercial and other protections” for national or foreign entities doing business with Venezuela in the event of piracy activities, a maritime blockade or other unlawful acts.
The U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday seized a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries that officials said was part of the fleet moving sanctioned cargo. With assistance from the U.S. Navy, it seized a rogue tanker called Skipper on Dec. 10. That ship was registered in Panama.
Trump, after that first seizure, said the U.S. would carry out a “blockade” of Venezuela. He has repeatedly said that Maduro’s days in power are numbered.
“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’ll ever be able to play tough,” Trump said of Maduro Monday as he took a break from his Florida vacation to announce plans for the Navy to build a new, large warship.
Lawmaker Giuseppe Alessandrello gives a speech during an extraordinary session at the National Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Evana, an oil tanker, is docked at El Palito port in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area to support its immigration crackdown, a significant defeat for the president's efforts to send troops to U.S. cities.
The justices declined the Republican administration’s emergency request to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry that had blocked the deployment of troops. An appeals court also had refused to step in. The Supreme Court took more than two months to act.
Three justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — publicly dissented.
The high court order is not a final ruling but it could affect other lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s attempts to deploy the military in other Democratic-led cities.
“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the high court majority wrote.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with the decision to keep the Chicago deployment blocked, but would have left the president more latitude to deploy troops in possible future scenarios.
The outcome is a rare Supreme Court setback for Trump, who had won repeated victories in emergency appeals since he took office again in January. The conservative-dominated court has allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military, claw back billions of dollars of congressionally approved federal spending, move aggressively against immigrants and fire the Senate-confirmed leaders of independent federal agencies.
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker applauded Tuesday’s decision as a win for the state and country.
“American cities, suburbs, and communities should not have to faced masked federal agents asking for their papers, judging them for how they look or sound, and living in fear that President can deploy the military to their streets,” he said.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, on the other hand, said the president had activated the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property from “violent rioters.”
“Nothing in today’s ruling detracts from that core agenda. The Administration will continue working day in and day out to safeguard the American public,” she said.
Alito and Thomas said in their dissent that the court had no basis to reject Trump's contention that the administration needed the troops to enforce immigration laws. Gorsuch said he would have narrowly sided with the government based on the declarations of federal law enforcement officials.
The administration had initially sought the order to allow the deployment of troops from Illinois and Texas, but the Texas contingent of about 200 National Guard troops was later sent home from Chicago.
The Trump administration has argued that the troops are needed “to protect federal personnel and property from violent resistance against the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
But Perry wrote that she found no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois and no reason to believe the protests there had gotten in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Perry had initially blocked the deployment for two weeks. But in October, she extended the order indefinitely while the Supreme Court reviewed the case.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview has been the site of tense protests, where federal agents have previously used tear gas and other chemical agents on protesters and journalists.
Last month, authorities arrested 21 protesters and said four officers were injured outside the Broadview facility. Local authorities made the arrests.
The Illinois case is just one of several legal battles over National Guard deployments.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen in the nation’s capital. Forty-five states have entered filings in federal court in that case, with 23 supporting the administration’s actions and 22 supporting the attorney general’s lawsuit.
More than 2,200 troops from several Republican-led states remain in Washington, although the crime emergency Trump declared in August ended a month later.
A federal judge in Oregon has permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there, and all 200 troops from California were being sent home from Oregon, an official said.
A state court in Tennessee ruled in favor of Democratic officials who sued to stop the ongoing Guard deployment in Memphis, which Trump has called a replica of his crackdown on Washington, D.C.
In California, a judge in September said deployment in the Los Angeles area was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained, and the judge did not order them to leave.
The Trump administration has appealed the California and Oregon rulings to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this story.
Law enforcement officers guard as protesters gather outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Ill., Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
