Pro-Con : “Is U.S. foreign policy largely responsible for Venezuela’s crumbling economy ?” | Tri-City Herald
▻http://www.tri-cityherald.com/opinion/editorials/article197928714.html
The Venezuelan government’s most valuable non-financial asset abroad is CITGO, a Houston-based corporation. It is obvious that the U.S. has ample financial power with which to harm Venezuelans if it is liberated from any moral or legal constraints by the U.S. media’s coverage of Venezuela.
That’s exactly what has happened. One now is more likely to find articles and op-eds in the U.S. media defending Saudi Arabia’s monstrous dictatorship than Venezuela’s democracy.
Years before President Donald Trump explicitly — and illegally — outlawed #Venezuela from borrowing or selling assets through the U.S. financial system, President Barack Obama ludicrously declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat” to the “national security” of the United States.
Obama’s belligerence, given U.S. financial clout, would scare away rational investors and deter loans — therefore increasing the stress on an economy already in crisis.
Trump, who has even threatened Venezuela with military assault, has simply unmasked the malevolence of U.S. policy entirely. His illegal financial embargo makes it nearly impossible for Venezuela to restructure its debt, an essential part of an economic recovery; and deprives more Venezuelans of food and life-saving medicines.
Since at least 2002, it has always been about putting U.S. allies in power in Venezuela regardless how many innocent people are hurt in the process.