US Controls Venezuela's Oil 'Indefinitely' After Maduro Abduction News
Al Jazeera's report, focusing on the economic uncertainty after a hypothetical 'Maduro abduction,' appears to miss the preceding 25 years of US foreign policy in Venezuela. While the piece highlights the US announcing control over Venezuelan oil sales 'indefinitely,' it sidesteps the long-standing economic sanctions and coup attempts that have already destabilized Venezuela's economy. The US
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has maintained crippling sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector for years, documented extensively by groups like CEPR, long before any 'abduction'. It makes one wonder: Is the US only asserting control now because Maduro is gone? Or was the 'abduction' merely the convenient narrative for Washington to formalize what it’s been doing for decades? The
US has actively imposed sanctions since 2005, escalating from 2017 onwards, specifically targeting oil revenue. They called it 'economic pressure' when it was happening, but now, with a fictional 'abduction,' suddenly the 'uncertainty' isn't engineered, but rather an organic outcome of an event? How many times does a country get destabilized before the media connects the dots? (Spoiler alert:
many).