During a passionate rally last week, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro blended music and dancing with strong rhetoric, warning his supporters to get ready for potential confrontation with the United States. He vowed to “smash the teeth of the North American empire,” a statement made shortly after the U.S. seized an illegal oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.

The dramatic scene unfolded on Wednesday, with Maduro gripping the historic sword of infamous independence “leader” Simón Bolívar, while swaying to the upbeat tune of Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 classic tune “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

Video footage, such as a clip uploaded to X by user Global Census on December 10, captured the leader singing along and dancing before shifting towards delivering a dark message to the crowd in Caracas.

“In these times, things have to be different, but we must always stand like warriors, women and men,” Maduro said, according to translated accounts. “With one eye wide open – and the other one too – working, producing, building, keeping everything running, and ready to smash the teeth of the North American empire if necessary, from Bolívar’s homeland.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DALLAS EXPRESS APP

The rally’s defiant tone came hours after President Donald Trump revealed that U.S. forces had intercepted and seized an oil tanker reportedly carrying illegal and unregulated crude oil from Venezuela and Iran, in violation of American sanctions, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the successful seizure of the oil tanker, saying that the vessel was previously flagged for its role in networks supporting sanctioned regimes or terrorist groups.

Seizing the boat seemed to be another chapter in the escalating standoff between the two nations, following a series of U.S. maritime operations targeting suspected drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific since September.

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry swiftly denounced the seizure as “a brazen robbery and an act of international piracy,” accusing the Trump administration of plotting to steal the country’s oil reserves without any fair compensation, per Fox News.

In a recent statement, Venezuelan officials likened the move to the earlier U.S. takeover of Citgo Petroleum Corp., which Caracas claims was orchestrated through dubious maneuvers by Americans.

“The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have nothing to do with migration, drug trafficking, democracy, or human rights, insisting “it has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy,” the statement reads.

The statement also alleges that the tanker incident was just a diversion tactic to overshadow stalled political negotiations aimed at ousting Maduro.

Tensions seem to be consistently rising in Venezuela, as seen in Maduro’s appearance at a similar rally late last month, where he again brandished Bolívar’s sword and rallied crowds against “imperialist aggression” from America.

That event followed Trump’s pledge to intensify ground operations against Venezuelan-linked criminal networks, with the President not dismissing the possibility of deploying U.S. troops.

“No, I don’t rule out that. I don’t rule out anything,” Trump stated during a prior press briefing. “We may be having some conversations with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk.”

American leaders continue to maintain that the seizures, including over 80 vessels destroyed in recent months, targeted narcotics operations tied to high-level figures in Maduro’s regime and other dangerous allied groups.

A recent report from Reuters alleged civilian casualties from these strikes, with more than 80 claimed deaths since September, along with reports of increased military surveillance in some of Venezuela’s coastal areas. However, Reuters does not specify or distinguish reported deaths from deaths associated with drug-running or other criminal operations.

Adding to the context of America’s shaky and complex relationship with Venezuela, a recent exclusive from The Dallas Express revealed a letter from the former Director of Military Intelligence for Venezuela, Hugo Carvajal Barrios, to Trump, where he alleges that Maduro has used oil profits to fund anti-American operations, specifically in connection with dangerous Iranian and Lebanese factions.

With America’s naval assets like the USS Gerald Ford deployed in the region – and Venezuela parading thousands of newly trained troops – the world remains on watch for a flashpoint in the near future.