The Trump administration plans to control future sales of Venezuelan oil and hold the proceeds in US accounts, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, making the clearest statement yet on Washington’s strategy to bring the impoverished nation’s crude to market and control its most valuable resource. Wright, who spoke at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. conference in Miami Wednesday, said initially the barrels would come from crude Venezuela is holding in storage, which has been filling up amid the US blockade and threatening to force some production off line. “We’re just going to get that crude moving again and sell it,” Wright said.
Venezuela was doing substantially better the last couple of years, and the sanctions do have a significant impact on their economic stability. Is it really fair to criticize someone for not being very successful when you go out of your way to steal their money & prevent them from making it?
Cuba has to deal with worse sanctions and has always done better than Venezuela ever since Chávez took control, but especially under Maduro. Ideology aside, Maduro is neither well-intentioned nor competent. Any regime with him at the head would do poorly, no matter if it were socialist, capitalist, liberal, authoritarian, democratic, a theocracy or anything else, and regardless of sanctions.