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Normally, "sanctions" refers to laws a state makes which restrict its own citizens, residents, businesses etc. (including foreign-owned businesses operating on its territory) from doing business with the sanctioned country, and increasingly to laws which restrict its banks from financing (even indirectly) transactions to and from the sanctioned country. (And it is effectively impossible to transact in USD without a US bank being indirectly involved, which is why US sanctions even in the conventional sense have such a powerful extra-territorial effect). Enforcement of traditional sanctions, like enforcement of the vast majority of laws, is territorial. States enforce laws against activity taking place on their own territory - even if in this case the aim is to produce an extra-territorial effect. The US has a long tradition of effectively enforcing sanctions by prosecuting US-based entities who trade with/finance sanctioned parties, and the EU has a long tradition of effectively enforcing sanctions by prosecuting EU-based entities likewise.
The passive voice is obfuscating what happened here. The US declared the ship "sanctioned" despite the ship being entirely outside its jurisdiction. (The claim that it was sanctioned for Iranian connections is a distraction - the ship was seized because it was trading with Venezuela. The US does not generally seize ships on the high seas based on vague "Iranian connections", because you are not pirates). The ship is "subject to seizure" as a matter of US law, because the US made a law which applies outside its territory. As a matter of international law, it probably isn't. (There are some technicalities here because most of the flags of convenience used by oil tanker operators are US client states - the situation where the US seizes a Liberian or Panamanian-flagged ship and the country of registration doesn't object is messy).
Regardless of legal technicalities, the policy here is seizing ships which export Venezuelan crude. That is the essence of a blockade. Is it an act of war? The Trump administration is deliberately blurring the distinction between peace and war here.
There are also secondary sanctions: US entities cannot do business with an entity in a third country that does business with a sanctioned entity.
Well, you'd hope that the US government follows its own laws first.
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Sanctions refer to what you describe, but not just what you describe. In particular, these sanctions disallow flag registry for participating nations. Any ship in international waters not flying a legitimate flag -- a stateless vessel -- is subject to seizure. That's what the US did here.
Yes, a law which applies on "the high seas". Which is certainly not anything unusual.
The seized vessel in this case -- the Skipper -- was flying a Guyanese flag. However, it does not have a Guyanese registration; this was a literal false flag. There's no flag state to object.
(Also, the Skipper wasn't exporting anything from Venezuela. I believe it was delivering naphtha)
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