The US has reimposed economic sanctions against a Venezuelan state-owned mining company and says it could go on to reimpose further sanctions on the country’s oil and gas sector after Venezuela’s Supreme Court barred main opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado from running for president last week.

The US Treasury on Monday revoked General License 43, which had authorized dealings with mining conglomerate CVG-Minerven. The Treasury said US companies have until February 13 to wind down transactions that were previously authorized by that license.

While US economic sanctions against the mining company are unlikely to cause significant damage to the Venezuelan economy, the US State Department has crucially signaled it intends to renew oil and gas sanctions from April 18, if there’s no progress between Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro and the opposition “particularly on allowing all presidential candidates to compete in this year’s elections,” it said in a statement.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Yes, because he has been impeached and indicted multiple times for charges related to violations of the oath of office of the presidency.

    What are Machado’s crimes that she should be barred?

    • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
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      9 months ago

      From what I can tell, conspiracy (against the government), inciting violent protests, and corruption. It’s weird they don’t say it in the article. But she says the protests were supposed to be peaceful and some of the conspiracy evidence was faked, which it might be, idk, I wasn’t in the court room.

      But considering the US is still doing shit like this, I could see why they have to be paranoid.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I don’t think a democratic process should be limited to only banning people that broke the law. Someone that intentionally wants to harm people through excessive austerity like Machado and Milei shouldn’t be able to run.

      Remember, Hitler was elected. If a democratic process can’t stop a person like that from running, then the democratic process is failed.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        This all sounds nice until you realize that a system like this would be easily abused. “I’m sorry, but the one candidate that actually stands a chance against me is banned because the courts full of judges I appointed has determined that their policies are harmful.”

        Who gets to be the arbiter of what policies are acceptable and what are not? Let the voters decide for themselves.

        • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The system can be made robust though. Implementation is also important, and I’m just one person so I’m not going create that framework for an Internet discussion. The question that the framework should rely on power: is the candidate advocating for a distribution of power, or a centralization of power? Privatization seeks to centralize power, for example.

          • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            State capitalism also centralizes power. It’s just centralized with the government instead of a monied class. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem if there is a robust electoral system and a low level of corruption but I feel based upon everything I’ve read about Venezuela that they’re lacking in both.

            • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The conversation drifted to theory rather than current conditions, so I chose to go in the direction of my idealized version of what this framework would look like. You’re right, as an ML nation there is still a centralization of power in Venezuela. I don’t have the answers for Venezuela, only the people of Venezuela do. However, I think the court made the right decision on behalf of the people, even if I disagree with the undemocratic nature of their courts.

        • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I can make reductionist arguments too:

          Okay, so you believe it was a good thing that Hitler was elected.