President Donald Trump announced Monday that the country’s sanctions against Venezuela already in place would be expanded into a total economic embargo.
Trump said he would sign an executive order imposing an embargo aimed at freezing the Venezuelan government’s assets, as well as those of associated entities. The embargo would also prohibit economic transactions with the country unless specifically exempted in cases of official business of the federal government and transactions related to the provision of humanitarian aid, CNN informs.
“I have determined that it is necessary to block the property of the Government of Venezuela in light of the continued usurpation of power by the illegitimate Nicolas Maduro regime, as well as the regime’s human rights abuses, arbitrary arrest and detention of Venezuelan citizens, curtailment of free press, and ongoing attempts to undermine Interim President Juan Guaido of Venezuela and the democratically-elected Venezuelan National Assembly,” Trump said in a letter to Congress.
A number of countries, including China and Russia, have supported Maduro, who won a second six-year term last year in an election considered by many a sham. The United States has publicly thrown its weight behind opposition leader and self-proclaimed President Juan Guaido.
“In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country’s constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant,” President Trump said earlier this year, recognizing Guaido as the legitimate president. “The people of Venezuela have courageously spoken out against Maduro and his regime and demanded freedom and the rule of law.”
The already devastating economic sanctions on the South American country have brought about the collapse of Venezuela’s oil output and put extensive pressure on the country’s economy.
The embargo represents the first such action against a Western government in over three decades, The Wall Street Journal reports. The latest move is not intended to affect the people of Venezuela, the outlet adds.
National Security Adviser John Bolton is scheduled to address the International Conference on Democracy in Venezuela on Tuesday, when he is reportedly going to say regarding the embargo, “It worked in Panama, it worked in Nicaragua once, and it will work there again, and it will work in Venezuela and Cuba!”
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