While Venezuela and Russia are joining their efforts to skirt the US sanctions, Donald Trump is going to make them even harder, The Epoch Times reports.
President Trump said this week that his country prepares to impose further sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector. For Nicolas Maduro, it means nothing good because oil is one of the chief sources of income for the treasury.
To make the message clearer, the White House also announced sanctions against Geneva-based but Russian-controlled oil brokerage Rosneft Trading S.A. According to the U.S. officials, that company has been helping the Venezuelan government to skirt the Washington oil embargo by acting as an intermediary.
Commenting on this issue at a news conference in New Delhi as his recent trip to India, Donald Trump warned that “there here could be very serious sanctions.”
“You are going to see in a little while. You are asking a question right in the middle of us doing something,” he promised.
Around 60 countries support sanctions against Venezuela after the reelection of Maduro in 2018. The Western countries and the EU doubt a legitimacy of elections’ democratic result and have recognized the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guiadó as interim president.
As the U.S. Department of State said, the regime of Nicolas Maduro has consistently violated and abused the human rights and dignity of the country’s citizens, and “severely interfered with the exercise of freedom of expression, all in a brutal effort to retain power.”
The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the recent press conference that “Maduro has destroyed Venezuela’s institutions, economy, and infrastructure, while enriching himself and his cronies, through his abuse of state power and his welcoming of malign support from Russia, as well as from Cuba, Iran, and China.”
Now, China and India are the most significant importers of Venezuelan oil products. Thanks to the Russian Rosneft that acts as an intermediary these countries are importing Venezuelan oil.
Reuters reports that Rosneft affiliates siphon Venezuelan crude as repayments on billions of dollars in Russian loans, while also exchanging crude oil exports for imports of refined fuels desperately needed by Venezuela’s economy to stabilize its national currency, bolivar.
