Financial sanctions handed down by the Trump administration on Friday that will prevent the financing of debt or dividend payments for Venezuela’s government and state oil company was praised by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA).
President Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing the sanctions on Friday aimed at curbing financial dealings with Venezuela. The administration’s action comes as a result of major abuses of human rights, a growing humanitarian crisis and rampant public corruption in Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro.
Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the “carefully calibrated sanctions” send a strong message to the Maduro regime while still allowing for humanitarian assistance.
“As I said when I visited the country in 2015, Venezuela is a country with great unrealized potential and its people deserve far better than the current state of affairs, which was brought on by gross economic mismanagement that has inflicted shortages, hyperinflation and unemployment on ordinary Venezuelans,” Corker said.
Corker applauded the Trump administration for standing with the Venezuelan people. “I look forward to working with them to examine additional policy options in the near future,” he said.
Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, noted reports that food prices in Venezuela increased by a thousand fold in 2016.
“Men, women and children are starving, but their government continues to focus on consolidating power,” Royce said. “I applaud the administration for (Friday’s) actions to deny Maduro additional financing to line the pockets of his enablers, and further shore up his dictatorship.”
Royce said the United States must support the people of Venezuela in order to restore democracy and human rights.