Nearly six weeks after imposing sweeping sanctions on PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, and apparently no closer to removing President Nicolas Maduro from office, the Trump administration is considering additional actions, including secondary sanctions that could impact nearly all crude and refined product flows in and out of the South American nation, sources said. “We’re going to expand the net,” said Elliott Abrams, the US Department of State’s special representative for Venezuela, during a Senate foreign relations subcommittee hearing Thursday.
Abrams said the US is readying more sanctions on financial institutions, including banks that facilitate crude and refined product trading with PDVSA, as well as additional sanctions and visa revocations of individuals connected to the Maduro regime. Sources said the Trump administration is also weighing secondary sanctions, which would target crude and refined product flows between PDVSA and non-US entities, similar to the current US sanctions on Iranian crude.
“The oil sanctions were imposed weeks ago and I think the administration expected Maduro to have fallen by now,” said Lisa Viscidi, director of energy, climate change and extractive industries at Inter-American Dialogue. “Venezuela is struggling to find buyers for its crude oil, but it is still getting shipments into India and Europe so pressuring other countries and banks to more strictly impose US sanctions is one of the few options left.” During Thursday’s hearing, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat-New Jersey, said he soon planned to introduce legislation that would encourage US allies to impose their own sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, and also on debt, gold and crypto-currencies.