US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has confirmed the US will steal the oil and ships it has seized from Venezuela this month.

Mr Trump told reporters at a press conference on Monday that “we’re going to keep [the oil],” adding “maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it. We’re keeping the ships also.” He said the US military was tracking a third tanker carrying Venezuelan oil, which it also intended to steal following the seizures of December 10 and 20.

Asked if regime change was the aim of the acts of piracy, Mr Trump said he thought they “probably would” force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office, which would be the “smart” thing for the socialist leader to do.

Mr Maduro insisted that Caracas would continue to fulfil its contracts with international investors and other countries, noting the departure of a tanker owned by US company Chevron, loaded with Venezuelan crude oil and bound for the United States, on Monday.

The United States has built up its largest military force in decades around Venezuela, including the biggest aircraft carrier in the world — the Gerald R Ford — and about 15,000 troops.

It accuses the Venezuelan government without evidence of masterminding the import of illegal drugs into the US, but Mr Trump has suggested on social media that taking control of the country’s oil reserves — the world’s largest — is his real goal. Last month, Washington announced a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine asserting that the US would keep all “non-hemispheric” countries out of Latin America and re-establish dominance across the continent.