WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new warning to his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, on Monday as the U.S. Coast Guard steps up its efforts to intercept oil tankers in the Caribbean, part of Washington's growing pressure campaign on Caracas.

Trump was accompanied by his top national security advisers — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — at a news conference in which he said he remains willing to further intensify his four-month pressure campaign on the Maduro government, which began with the stated purpose of stopping the flow of illegal drugs from the South American nation, but has become more amorphous.

“If he wants to do something, if he plays hardball, it will be the last time he can play hardball,” Trump warned of Maduro as he briefly interrupted his vacation in Florida in order to announce plans for the Navy build a new large warship.

The US president issued his most recent threat as the Coast Guard continued on Monday to pursue for the second day a sanctioned oil tanker, which according to the Trump administration is part of a "clandestine fleet" that Venezuela is using to evade sanctions imposed on it by Washington. The tanker, says the White House, is sailing under a false flag and faces a judicial seizure order in the United States.

“It is advancing and we will end up capturing it,” Trump warned.

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It is the third tanker pursued by the Coast Guard, which on Saturday seized a Panamanian-flagged vessel called Centuries that, according to US officials, was part of the Venezuelan clandestine fleet.

The Coast Guard, with support from the Navy, seized a sanctioned tanker named Skipper on December 10, which was also part of the fleet of tankers that the United States says operates outside the law to move sanctioned cargo. That ship was registered in Panama.

After that first seizure, Trump announced that the United States would carry out a “blockade” of Venezuela. The president has repeatedly warned that Maduro's days in power are numbered.

Trump last week demanded that Caracas return assets it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, again justifying his announcement of a “blockade” against sanctioned oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose agency oversees the Coast Guard — testified Monday in an appearance on the show “Fox & Friends.” that the operations against the ships are intended to send “a message to the world that the illegal activity in which Maduro participates cannot continue, he must leave, and that we will defend our people.”

Russian diplomats evacuate families from Caracas

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry has begun evacuating families of diplomats who are in Venezuela, according to a European intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

The official told The Associated Press that the evacuations that began Friday include women and children, adding that Russian Foreign Ministry officials are assessing the situation in Venezuela in “very somber tones.” In a post on the social network flagrant violations of international law that are being committed in the Caribbean: attacks against vessels and extrajudicial executions and the illicit acts of piracy carried out by the United States government," Gil said in a statement.

The scene on a Venezuelan beach near a refinery

As US forces focused on ships in international waters over the weekend, an oil tanker considered part of the clandestine fleet was captured moving between Venezuelan refineries, including one about three hours west of Caracas.

The tanker remained at the refinery in El Palito until Sunday, while families flocked to the town's beach to have fun with children, who are now on vacation.

Music played from speakers while people swam and surfed with the oil tanker in the background. Families and teenagers had fun, but Manuel Salazar, who has parked cars on the beach for more than three decades, noticed differences from years past, when the country's oil-dependent economy was in better shape and the energy industry was producing at least double the current million barrels per day.

“Up to nine or 10 tankers were waiting out there in the bay. One left, the other came in,” said Salazar, 68. "Now see: one."

Transparencia Venezuela—an independent organization that promotes government accountability—identified that the oil tanker in El Palito is part of the clandestine fleet.

Residents of the area remembered when oil tankers sounded their horns at midnight on New Year's Eve, and some even threw fireworks to celebrate the holiday.

“Before, on vacation, they would grill. Now you see bread with mortadella,” Salazar said of the Venezuelan families who spend vacations on the beach next to the refinery. “Things are expensive. Every day the food goes up and up.”

The National Assembly — controlled by Venezuela's ruling party — on Monday gave initial approval to a measure that would declare illegal a wide range of activities that could be linked to the seizure of oil tankers.

Lawmaker Giuseppe Alessandrello, who introduced the bill, said people could be fined and imprisoned for up to 20 years for promoting, soliciting, supporting, financing or participating in “actions of piracy, blockades or other international illicit actions against legal entities doing business with the republic."

The Department of Defense, under orders from Trump, continues its campaign of attacks on smaller vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that it alleges are transporting drugs to the United States and beyond.

At least 105 people have been killed in 29 known attacks since early September. Those attacks have come under scrutiny by US lawmakers and rights activists. humans, who say the government has offered little evidence that they are actually drug traffickers, and that the attacks amount to extrajudicial executions.

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García Cano reported from El Palito, Venezuela, and Burrows from London.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.