Five Iranian tankers sailing to Venezuela

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Five Iranian tankers likely carrying at least $45.5 million worth of gasoline and similar products are now sailing to Venezuela, part of a wider deal between the two U.S.-sanctioned nations amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The tankers’ voyage came after Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro already turned to Iran for help in flying in chemicals needed at an aging refinery amid a gasoline shortage, a symptom of the wider economic and political chaos gripping Latin America’s onetime largest oil producer.

For Iran, the tankers represent a way to bring money into its cash-starved Shiite theocracy and put its own pressure on the U.S., which under President Donald Trump has pursued maximalist campaigns against both nations.

But the strategy invites the chance of a renewed confrontation between the Islamic Republic and America

both in the Persian Gulf, which saw a series of escalating incidents often involving the oil industry last year, and wider afield.

All the vessels involved belong to Iranian stateowned or state-linked companies, flying under the Iranian flag. Since a pressure campaign on Iranian vessels began, notably with the temporary seizure of an Iranian tanker last year by Gibraltar, the country’s ships have been unable to fly flags of convenience of other nations, a common practice in international shipping.

Late Sunday Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres saying the U.S. “piracy” threatened the “disruption of Iran’s fuel transmission to Venezuela.“

It remains unclear how the U.S. will respond to the tankers. On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury, State Department and Coast Guard issued an advisory warning the maritime industry of illegal shipping and sanctions-dodging tactics by countries including Iran.