Sixteen oil tankers are loading Venezuelan crude. BRICS countries are involved. Mexico too. And they are doing it despite the US blockade.

That alone tells you what you need to know.

This is not some dramatic showdown. No speeches. No threats. Just ships quietly doing what Washington said they shouldn’t.

US sanctions only work if everyone plays along. They are not law. They are pressure. Fear of dollar exclusion. Fear of secondary sanctions. What we are seeing here is that a growing number of countries are deciding that the fear costs more than the defiance.

This is not ideological unity or anti-US posturing. It is practical. China wants energy security. India wants cheap oil. Russia is already sanctioned to the hilt. Brazil is hedging. Mexico is signalling that proximity to Washington does not automatically mean obedience.

Venezuela is not the prize. It is the test case. If oil can be loaded, insured, sold, and settled without US permission, then the enforcement model weakens everywhere else too.

This is how power actually shifts now. Not with tanks. Not with wars. With logistics. With payments. With ships sailing anyway.

Sixteen tankers will not collapse the system. But they show something important. The system no longer holds unquestioned authority.

This is not the collapse of American power. It is worse than that. It is the loss of enforcement credibility.

And once that spell breaks, it rarely comes back.