Monday, January 28, 2019

BREAKING: Treasury Sanctions Venezuela’s State-Owned Oil Company

This is going to hurt.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has place sanctions on Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13850 for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy.  PdVSA is a Venezuelan state-owned oil company and a primary source of Venezuela’s income and foreign currency.  Since this is the Empire giving an order, the sanctions will include transactions in U.S. dollars and also Euros.
“The United States is holding accountable those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline, and will continue to use the full suite of its diplomatic and economic tools to support Interim President Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly, and the Venezuelan people’s efforts to restore their democracy,” said Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin.  “Today’s designation of PdVSA will help prevent further diverting of Venezuela’s assets by Maduro and preserve these assets for the people of Venezuela.  The path to sanctions relief for PdVSA is through the expeditious transfer of control to the Interim President or a subsequent, democratically elected government.”

As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of PdVSA subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

 Of course, this is simply U.S. meddling that will make life even more difficult for the average Venezuelan.  If the crony government of Maduro can't siphon off oil revenues, he will squeeze other parts of the already weakened economy.



-RW 

1 comment:

  1. Don't forget that socialists here in the U.S. will point to measures like these as an excuse for why society collapsed in Venezuela.

    Of course they'll completely ignore the fact that even in the absence of outside interference Venezuela was already doomed for a predictable and rapid decline as a result of its inherently dysfunctional economic and political structure.

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