US at war with Venezuelans for keeping Maduro: Analyst

The United States is waging an all-out economic war against the people of Venezuela only because they rejected the US-backed opposition and refused to oust President Nicolas Maduro, says an American analyst.

Dan Kovalik, an author and political analyst in Pennsylvania, said US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the hawkish tendencies of his national security adviser, John Bolton.

“Clearly John Bolton has seized a lot of the foreign policy decisions from Trump or at least that is what appears to be happening,” Kovalik told Press TV on Wednesday.

Bolton told a summit on Venezuela in the Peruvian capital Lima on Tuesday that Washington could impose sanctions on any international company for conducting business with Maduro’s government.

This would mean that international companies will have to choose whether to access the US and its financial system or do business with Maduro, he noted.

Washington has imposed several rounds of sanctions against the oil-rich country to oust Maduro and replace him with opposition figure Juan Guaido, who declared himself “interim president” earlier this year.

Kovalik said the remarks were not much of a surprise given Bolton’s penchant for chaos.

Bolton has been very clear that he wants regime change Iran and in Venezuela, something he is willing to achieve even through military conflict, the analyst noted.

He recounted remarks by Trump, who mockingly said once that Bolton wanted to start a war somewhere.

“So now Bolton is really ratcheting up the sanctions against Venezuela … even to the point of being willing to sanction businesses that do business with the country of Venezuela,” Kovalik said.

PressTV-'US may sanction intl. firms doing business with Maduro'

The United States is ready to impose sanctions on any international company for doing business with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, says US national security adviser John Bolton.

This means that Washington will probably sanction companies that are selling much-needed medicine and foodstuff to the Latin American country.

Venezuelans are suffering from a lack of basic necessities under US sanctions. According to United Nations statistics, a quarter of Venezuela’s 30-million-strong population is in need of humanitarian aid.

Kovalik pointed to unconfirmed reports that thousands of Venezuelans have lost their lives because of the bilateral sanctions in 2018. Kovalik predicted that the number could get much bigger this year.

“So this is really a war,” he argued. “It is a war against Venezuela, a war by other means and it is tragic.”

“I mean it doesn’t look like the regime change is going to work and so what is going to happen is that the people of Venezuela are just going to be made to suffer… they are being punished for not overthrowing their government,” he concluded.

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