President Trump signed several new sanctions today against the regime of socialist President Maduro of Venezuela. Maduro was elected president for another six-year term over the weekend in an election that Vice President Mike Pence called “a sham.”
“The illegitimate result of this fake process is a further blow to the proud democratic tradition of Venezuela,” Pence said in a statement, adding, “The United States will not sit idly by as Venezuela crumbles and the misery of their brave people continues. America stands against dictatorship and with the people of Venezuela.”
The new U.S. sanctions prevent the Maduro regime from selling off key Venezuelan assets in a “fire sale,” which, if sold, would leave the citizens of Venezuela without critical infrastructure necessary to rebuild the country and its economy.
Additional sanctions signed by the president stop the Maduro regime from earning money by selling off the country’s financial assets and entities of the government.
“This money belongs to the Venezuelan people,” Trump said in a statement.
The president cited Maduro’s creation of the crisis in Venezuela, specifically his “endemic economic mismanagement, public corruption, and ongoing repression of the political opposition,” as the motivation behind the new sanctions.
Trump continued to explain that Maduro will have to bend to U.S. demands to “hold free and fair elections, release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally, and end the repression and economic deprivation of the Venezuelan people” if he hopes to have the sanctions lifted anytime soon.