The most egregious seizure – in terms of illegality – being a Chinese-owned, Panama-flagged vessel reportedly destined for China – and on no one's sanctions list.

In a different zone of conflict, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) last Friday claimed that it had struck a Russian so-called "shadow fleet" tanker, the Qendil, with aerial drones in waters of the Mediterranean Sea off Morocco. The SBU did not give further details of the attack, including how the SBU deployed a drone in the Mediterranean (2,000 Km from Ukraine), or the site from which it was launched. The SBU source said the cargo ship was empty at the time of the attack.

President Putin, in midst of his annual question and answer marathon, vowed that Russia would retaliate.

"Blockades," seizures and attacks, very plainly, are acts of war (despite the US claim that America owns all oil produced by Venezuela – until all historical US legal claims against Venezuela are satisfied). This tanker-episode is yet another ratchet to the drift to lawlessness in US foreign policy.

These acts pre-eminently are aimed at China (which has large equities in the Venezuelan oil industry) and Russia, which has longstanding ties to both Venezuela and Cuba (now under Trump "blockade" too). Add to that the $11bn in weapons being sent to Taiwan — with a significant amount of medium to long-range missile systems being part of the planned transfer, including 82 HIMARS launchers with Army ATACMS missiles, allowing Taipei forces to hit targets across the Taiwan Strait.

This latter transfer has infuriated China.

What this suggests is that the National Strategy Statement (NSS) in respect to China (it states that Washington views China as no longer constituting a "prime threat," but only as an economic competitor) is meaningless rhetoric. China is being treated as an adversarial threat and will respond as such.