Alina DIESTE -
The Trump administration has said it will not sit idly by in the face of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship.” But what will it do after Sunday’s presidential elections which it has denounced as a “sham”?
The United States, which in March 2015 labelled Venezuela “a national security threat,” has already imposed sanctions on dozens of officials and companies from the Socialist government in Caracas.
Maduro and several other senior government officials have been targeted and accused of corruption or complicity in drug trafficking.
President Donald Trump has also banned US entities from buying bonds from the Venezuelan state or from its oil company, PDVSA, and has forbidden any trading in the petro, the new crypto-currency that Venezuela launched to the public in March.
“If Maduro wins, as he is expected to, the US government will certainly tighten the screws even more,” said David Smilde of the WOLA centre for human rights in Washington. Mariano de Alba, a Venezuelan lawyer who specialises in international affairs, said Washington will step up sanctions against Venezuelan government officials, “including their relatives and associates.”
He said that similar steps would probably be taken by the European Union, Canada and other Latin American countries, at Washington’s urging. The US Treasury Department’s sanctions list will likely be extended to include Maduro’s powerful deputy Diosdado Cabello, said Jason Marczak, director of Latin American studies at the Atlantic Council, an independent think-tank.
“Trump will have little choice but to show greater toughness,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue which tries to foster democratic governance, after the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said last week it was “time for Maduro to go.”
An oil embargo seems unlikely in the short term, said De Alba, especially since the US oil giant ConocoPhillips in April won a court order allowing it to seize $2 billion in PDVSA assets under an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration court ruling, a tough blow for Caracas.
“The Conoco situation is placing a huge burden on the Maduro government, because no Venezuelan oil tanker can leave to international waters without the threat of being seized,” said Marczak.
Smilde agreed, but said that before Washington starts a total oil blockade, it can take intermediary measures against the Venezuelan oil sector — the backbone of the failing economy — such as putting sanctions on companies that insure Venezuelan tankers. — AFP
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