The Trump administration is poised to level severe sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry if President Nicolas Maduro takes drastic action such as arresting top opposition leaders or killing protesters following international recognition of the National Assembly leader as the head of state, according to current and former administration officials.
The sanctions under discussion range from a cap on oil purchases from Venezuela to a full embargo. Venezuela sits on the largest oil reserves in the world.
A full embargo on purchasing Venezuelan oil is the strongest tool left in the administration’s economic arsenal, but so far officials have been reluctant to take it knowing of the chaos it would unleash on the already-suffering country.
But the administration is now ready to sanction the oil industry as the crisis heightened and plans are in place for a Venezuela government without Maduro. The administration has recognized the president of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as the de facto leader of Venezuela.
“They’re waiting for Maduro’s next move now,” said one person familiar with administration discussions. “If/when he does something stupid, like arrest (National Assembly Leader) Juan Guaido or start killing protesters, oil sanctions should come fairly quickly.”
The White House, National Security Council, State Department, Commerce and Treasury departments and other agencies have been wrestling for months about which option to take.
The White House has long pushed for stronger oil sanctions, but has met resistance from almost every other agency whose top officials fear of worsening an already perilous humanitarian crisis that has already driven millions of Venezuelans out of the country and in the region.
The hope is oil sanctions will be the final step needed to finally drive Maduro from office and allow the US and international allies to help opposition leaders inside Venezuela rebuild the once oil-rich nation and restore democratic institutions.
The White House continues to follow the “escalatory road map” that aides drew up for President Donald Trump in 2017 of available economic and individual sanctions. But many steps have largely been taken. They included tagging Maduro as a dictator, sanctions on individuals, and financial sector sanctions. The final step not taken is oil sector sanctions.
Fernando Cutz, a former acting senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council in the Trump administration,who helped draft the road map, called oil sanctions a “risky move.”
Ideally, he said, the administration waits to use the step when officials can confidently predict the outcome because if Maduro survives an oil embargo, the administration could be ensuring a new Cuba-style regime in Venezuela for years to come.
“Once we open that Pandora’s Box, we don’t know how that will close,” Cutz said.
Trump administration officials say they stand ready to provide Guaido financial and humanitarian assistance. He has declared himself the president with international support, but Maduro is not recognizing the move and has the backing of top military officials.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that the US government is prepared to dispatch more than $20 million in humanitarian aid to help Guaido cope with the severe food and medicine shortages ‘‘and other dire impacts of their country’s political and economic crisis.” National security adviser John Bolton said the United States is investigating how Venezuelan government money and resources in the United States can be seized and transferred to Guaido.
“What we’re focusing on today is disconnecting the illegitimate Maduro regime from the source of its revenues,” Bolton told reporters. — dpa
Franco Ordonez and Tim Johnson
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