Asian markets, having dropped at the start of the week, struggled to make big inroads higher.
Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Manila and Jakarta rose, but Hong Kong and Shanghai were flat, while Sydney, Singapore and Wellington fell.
Oil prices jumped more than 1 per cent after Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he was “ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela”.
The announcement sharply escalates his campaign against the country – while issuing new demands for the country’s crude – after months of building military forces in the Caribbean with the stated goal of combating drug trafficking in Latin America.
Caracas views the operation as a pressure campaign to oust leftist strongman Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington and many nations view as an illegitimate president.
The gains pared some of the 2.7 per cent in losses suffered on Tuesday after the US president said a deal to end the war in Ukraine was closer than ever.
An end to the war could ease sanctions on Russian oil, adding to oversupply concerns already weighing on the market.
On currency markets, the yen strengthened further against the dollar following the US jobs data and days before the Bank of Japan is expected to hike interest rates to a 30-year high on Friday.
In corporate news, Chinese chipmaker MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai soared more than 550 per cent on its home city debut on Wednesday, having raised US$585.8 million in an initial public offering.
The jump comes after semiconductor company Moore Threads also rocketed more than 500 per cent on its first day earlier in the month, having taken US$1.1 billion in its IPO.
