The Trump administration on Wednesday said it’s marketing Venezuelan crude oil for sale and will control the flow of crude from the South American country “indefinitely” as U.S. forces seized two sanctioned tankers in Atlantic waters.

The administration is enlisting private companies and financial institutions to facilitate the sale of oil, insisting its aggressive efforts will benefit everyone.

“All proceeds from the sale of the Venezuelan crude oil and products will first settle in U.S.-controlled accounts at globally recognized banks to guarantee the legitimacy and integrity of the ultimate distribution of proceeds,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Those funds will be disbursed for the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people at the discretion of the United States government.”

She said the U.S. will roll back some sanctions on Venezuelan oil to facilitate the sales.

Moves to control the crude supply from Venezuela, which has the world’s largest known oil reserves, followed the U.S. military’s weekend raid to capture President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.

Mr. Maduro was flown to New York to face an indictment on narco-terrorism charges, leaving Venezuela in the hands of an interim government.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week’s fast-moving actions are part of a broader plan to stabilize Venezuela under acting President Delcy Rodriguez while using its oil reserves as leverage to ensure American interests.

“It’s not just winging it,” Mr. Rubio told Capitol Hill reporters on Wednesday.

He said oil profits will benefit regular people and “not corruption, not the regime.”

Even before the raid, President Trump imposed a “total and complete blockade” on already sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers on Dec. 16.

The U.S. on Wednesday intercepted and boarded a Venezuela-linked oil tanker, now registered under Russia, in the North Atlantic after multiple weeks of pursuit.

The Treasury Department-sanctioned oil tanker, formerly called the Bella 1 and now named Marinera, defied the U.S. maritime blockade of sanctioned ships. It was reportedly being shadowed by a Russian submarine when U.S. authorities seized the tanker.

The U.S. Coast Guard, which had a warrant to seize the ship, tried to board the Bella 1 off Venezuela last month. The ship had been accused of breaking U.S. sanctions and shipping Iranian oil. It then changed its name and re-registered as a Russian vessel.

The U.S. seized a second ship Wednesday in the Caribbean, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

The ship, called the Motor Tanker Sophia, recently docked at an oil port in Venezuela and wasn’t transmitting location data.

The Marinera seizure could lead to rising tensions between Washington and Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry told state news agency TASS that the vessel was operating in full compliance with international maritime law and was receiving “disproportionate” attention from the U.S.

Russia had reportedly sent at least one Russian naval vessel to escort the tanker.

Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday he’s working with the interim government in Caracas to sell stored oil, rebuild infrastructure and stabilize production.

“Indefinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” he said at a Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami. “If we control the flow of oil, the sales of (that) oil and the flow of the cash that comes from those sales, we have large leverage. But without large leverage, as we’ve seen in the last 25 years, you don’t get change.”

Mr. Wright described the state of Venezuelan oil infrastructure as “not good,” signaling a long project ahead.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday said the interim Venezuelan government will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the U.S.

The oil, the president said, “will be taken by storage ships and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

His focus on oil will likely fuel skepticism about U.S. motives.

Some Venezuelans cheered the ouster of Mr. Maduro, who is viewed by many in the West as illegitimate, while others denounced American interference as an ugly throwback to an imperialist era in which outsiders cared more about their natural resources than their well-being.

The Trump administration insists U.S. intervention will benefit Americans and Venezuelans.

“We want to change the game in Venezuela, fix the country so it’s a productive member of the Western Hemisphere, so it’s an ally of the United States and a major supplier of oil to the world,” Mr. Wright said. “But the old ways weren’t working.”

Mr. Trump’s moves against Venezuela are reverberating across the globe.

U.S. lawmakers and European leaders in NATO are concerned that Mr. Trump will use military force to seize Greenland, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, given recent rhetoric from Mr. Trump and his top aides.

“Threats and intimidation by U.S. officials over American ownership of Greenland are as unseemly as they are counterproductive,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said. “And the use of force to seize the sovereign democratic territory of one of America’s most loyal and capable allies would be an especially catastrophic act of strategic self-harm to America and its global influence.”

Mr. Rubio said Mr. Trump’s preference is to purchase the Arctic island.

“President Trump’s been talking about this since his first term,” the secretary of state said.

Danish officials have rejected those offers and are taking military action seriously.

Ms. Leavitt said Mr. Trump does not like to signal his plans.

“That’s not something this president does. All options are always on the table for President Trump,” she said.

Ms. Leavitt said diplomacy is always the first option, though she pointed to Venezuela and Iran as countries that found out the hard way that Mr. Trump is ready to use military force if talks fail.