The Trump administration is mulling over sanctions against senior Venezuelan government officials, and additional measures could include sanctions against the country’s oil industry, such as halting imports into the U.S., according to senior Washington officials who spoke to media. The goal of the sanctions is to prevent the Nicolas Maduro government from having things its way at a July 30 election for a Constituent Assembly that, the U.S. administration believes, would serve to cement Maduro’s power and turn Venezuela into a “full dictatorship.” The Constitutional Assembly vote was proposed by the government as a means of tackling the political crisis that Venezuela slid into last year, after the election of a new parliament where the opposition had a majority that put it at odds with the government. A Constituent Assembly can rewrite the country’s constitution, and many observers see the move as an attempt to strengthen the current regime’s […]