JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

US hits Venezuela with oil sanctions to press Maduro exit

by

Associated Press
2364 days ago
20190128
National security adviser John Bolton speaks as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin listens during a press briefing at the White House on Monday.

National security adviser John Bolton speaks as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin listens during a press briefing at the White House on Monday.

Evan Vucci

WASH­ING­TON (AP) — The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion im­posed sanc­tions Mon­day on the state-owned oil com­pa­ny of Venezuela, a po­ten­tial­ly crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic move aimed at in­creas­ing pres­sure on Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to cede pow­er to the op­po­si­tion.

Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er John Bolton and Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Steven Mnuchin an­nounced the mea­sures against the com­pa­ny. They are al­so aimed at boost­ing Maduro’s ri­val, op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do, whom the ad­min­is­tra­tion recog­nised last week as Venezuela’s le­git­i­mate leader. The sanc­tions will in­clude a freeze on any as­sets the firm may have in US ju­ris­dic­tions and bar Amer­i­cans from do­ing busi­ness with it.

Bolton said he ex­pects the ac­tions will block US$7 bil­lion in as­sets and cause more than US$11 bil­lion in lost ex­port pro­ceeds dur­ing the next year.

“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 Guai­do, the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, and the Venezue­lan peo­ple’s ef­forts to re­store their democ­ra­cy,” Mnuchin said.

“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,” he said.

PDS­VA is the acronym for the state-owned oil com­pa­ny.

Sen­a­tor Mar­co Ru­bio, a vo­cal crit­ic of Maduro who has called for such sanc­tions, wel­comed the move even be­fore it was an­nounced.

“The Maduro crime fam­i­ly has used PDVSA to buy and keep the sup­port of many mil­i­tary lead­ers,” Ru­bio said. “The oil be­longs to the Venezue­lan peo­ple, and there­fore the mon­ey PDVSA earns from its ex­port will now be re­turned to the peo­ple through their le­git­i­mate con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment.”

The sanc­tions will not like­ly af­fect con­sumer prices at the gas pump but will hit oil re­fin­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those on the US Gulf Coast.

Venezue­lan oil ex­ports to the US have de­clined steadi­ly over the years, falling par­tic­u­lar­ly sharply over the past decade as its pro­duc­tion plum­met­ed amid its long eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis. The US im­port­ed less than 500,000 bar­rels a day of Venezue­lan crude and pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts in 2017, down from more than 1.2 mil­lion bar­rels a day in 2008, ac­cord­ing to the En­er­gy In­for­ma­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Still, Venezuela has con­sis­tent­ly been the third- or fourth-largest sup­pli­er of crude oil to the Unit­ed States, and any dis­rup­tion of im­ports could be cost­ly for re­fin­ers. In 2017, the most re­cent year that da­ta were avail­able, Venezuela ac­count­ed for about 6 per cent of US crude im­ports.

Valero and Cit­go are among the largest im­porters of Venezue­lan crude.

But Venezuela is very re­liant on the US. for its oil rev­enue. The coun­try sends 41 per cent of its oil ex­ports to the US. Crit­i­cal­ly, US re­fin­ers are among the few cus­tomers that pay cash to Venezuela for its oil. That’s be­cause Venezuela’s oil ship­ments to Chi­na and Rus­sia are usu­al­ly tak­en as re­pay­ment for bil­lions of dol­lars in debts.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored