WASHINGTON/CARACAS - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company in an effort to halt financing that fuels President Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship,” the White House said on Friday.
The order is Washington’s biggest sanctions blow to date against Maduro and is intended to punish his leftist government for what Trump has called an erosion of democracy in the oil-rich country, already reeling from an economic crisis.
“Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro talks to the media in front of images of Venezuela's national hero Simon Bolivar, during a news conference at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela on Aug. 22, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello
