WASHINGTON 

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his administration’s naval blockade of Venezuela, arguing the move is necessary to protect American interests and prevent unauthorized activity in the region.

"We're not gonna let anybody going through that shouldn't be going through. They took all of our energy rights—they took all of our oil from not that long ago ... they illegally took it," Trump told reporters.

His remarks came one day after he announced a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, branding the government of Nicolas Maduro a “foreign terrorist organization.”

Trump framed the action as a response to what he described as the illegal seizure of American energy assets, repeating long-standing grievances about Venezuela’s oil sector.

“Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had. They took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching. But they’re not going to do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back," he said.