On Monday, President Donald Trump ordered to freeze all the assets of the Venezuelan government in the United States, in Washington’s last onslaught against President Nicolás Maduro.
I decided that it is necessary to block the properties of the Venezuelan government due to the continuation of the usurpation of power by the illegitimate regime of Nicolás Maduro,”
Trump said in a letter to the head of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
The Wall Street Journal indicated that it is the first time that Washington has applied this measure against a Western Hemisphere government in more than 30 years, and that it imposes restrictions similar to those applied to North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba. The measure also bans transactions with Venezuelan authorities whose assets are blocked.
The United States leads the international pressure aiming to Maduro’s departure, whose second term started in January is considered the result of fraudulent elections.
Trump was the first to recognize the opposition-controlled head of Parliament, Juan Guaidó, as interim president of Venezuela. And from the White House, he has imposed a battery of sanctions in the last two years against the Maduro government, including a restriction on the crude oil of the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
The series of sanctions that the United States applies against Caracas began in 2014 during the Barack Obama administration with a law that imposed penalties against people responsible for human rights violations. Washington balmes Maduo for the economic debacle in Venezuela, which according to the UN has left a quarter of its 30 million inhabitants in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
Currently the sanctions affect Maduro and his relatives, the chancellor, senior military officers and touch key sectors of the economy such as the financial system, the gold sector and also shipping companies that have transported Venezuelan crude.