On March 9, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a strongly-worded executive order designating Venezuela “a threat to national security”, and imposing sanctions against several Venezuelan officials for alleged human rights violations.
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“Venezuela is going to present a lawsuit in the United States itself, against Obama’s illegal worldwide decree, which threatens Venezuela”, Maduro said in a televised broadcast.
His statement comes at a time when the US has said it does not rule out widening the sanctions against the Venezuelan officials, if required, and that the December legislative elections will play an important part in determining if that is done. The suit alleges the website is destabilizing the Venezuelan economy and damaging the reputation of the government.
Tensions between Venezuela and the USA have risen since Mr. Maduro’s administration put down a wave of nationwide protests in 2014 with the help of progovernment paramilitary groups and jailed political rivals. But Brazil, an ally that was supposed to lead that delegation, pulled out last week, citing difficulty in assessing the fairness of the electoral process.
To a large degree, Washington’s relationship with Venezuela going forward “will depend of what happens around the legislative elections and what happens around the issue of political prisoners”, Shannon told Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
In just a month from now, Venezuela will host its parliamentary elections, and with extremely low approval ratings (24.3% in July according to Datanalisis), Maduro’s party is expected by many to take a big hit. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who asked whether the efforts were enough.
“Since early yesterday, before the voting, the entire USA diplomatic apparatus called on one United Nations ambassador after another, on prime ministers (and) on presidents, to not vote for Venezuela”, Maduro said.
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Senior U.S. diplomat Thomas Shannon said Thursday that if approved to his new State Department position he may seek new sanctions against officials in Venezuela.
