A man walks past a mural featuring oil pumps and wells in Caracas, Venezuela, as the country faces the prospect of the U.S. reimposing oil sanctions.
Matias Delacroix/AP
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Matias Delacroix/AP
A man walks past a mural featuring oil pumps and wells in Caracas, Venezuela, as the country faces the prospect of the U.S. reimposing oil sanctions.
Matias Delacroix/AP
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — As Venezuela’s authoritarian regime continues to crack down on its opponents, the U.S. government must decide this week whether to reimpose sanctions on the country’s vital oil industry. The deadline is Thursday.
Those sanctions were temporarily lifted last October after Venezuela signed an agreement to take steps toward holding a free and fair presidential election. Instead, analysts say that President Nicolás Maduro’s regime has reneged on the deal by persecuting the political opposition.
“The list [of abuses] is so long,” says Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I think you need some kind of reimposition of sanctions to show that there’s accountability.”
Here are four things you should know about the pending oil sanctions deadline for Venezuela.
How did we get here?
During 11 years in power, the Maduro regime has been targeted by a variety of U.S. sanctions in response to its crackdown on the country’s democracy. But the strongest measures came in 2019 as part of the Trump…