US sanctions on Venezuela sign of ‘desperation’: Expert
A Latin America affairs’ expert tells Press TV’s The Debate program that the United States’ most recent sanctions targeting Venezuela signals Washington’s frustration in the face of Caracas.
Aline Piva, journalist and commentator from Sao Paulo, made the remarks to the program on Tuesday after the US compounded its already draconian economic sanctions against Venezuela by imposing a blockade on all the Venezuelan government’s assets on the American soil.
She described the latest American bans as “a very extreme measure” and an indication that Washington had become “desperate” in its attempts to subvert the Latin American country’s elected government.
Piva said the White House had resorted to the asset freeze after all its previous measures against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — be they economic bans or support for opposition figure Juan Guaido —failed to have “the outcome that they (the Americans) were expecting.”
She said the boycott was going to have “severe impact on the already embattled economy of Venezuela,” noting what Washington was seeking was “final destruction of the Venezuelan economy.”
The journalist also commented on a January report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a progressive Washington, D.C-based think tank, that had said as many as 40,000 people may have died as a result of the US’s sanctions on Venezuela.
She said US President Donald Trump wanted to “cause the [Venezuelan] people to suffer,” and called his administration a “a government that feels that it has the power to actually lead people to die just to overthrow a government.”
Michael Lane, founder of American Institute for Foreign Policy from Washington, who was also being hosted by the program, said Washington considered Maduro’s government to be “illegitimate.” He acknowledged that it was seeking “regime change” in Venezuela.
Lane considered the Tuesday sanctions to be “the final nail in the economic coffin of Venezuela” and an attempt to target “many of those who are loyal to Maduro.”
He said if the bans fail to work, Washington “may consider a military blockade” against the Latin American country, but noted he did not think Trump was still ready to go that far yet.
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