Sanctions on Venezuelan oil ‘could work,’ expatriates here say,
Venezuelans living in the United States have watched their home country’s political and economic turmoil leave over 100 people dead in mass protests against the government. And during Sunday’s vote in which the consolidation of socialist President Nicolas Maduro’s power seemed a foregone conclusion, they had to wrestle with the idea of possible economic sanctions by President Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump already has placed sanctions on 13 former and current senior Venezuelan officials, announcing Thursday that their U.S. bank accounts would be frozen and they would not be allowed to conduct any business with American individuals.
Action by the United States against the oil-rich South American nation’s economy would send a clear message by cutting off revenues from exported crude and supply of imported gasoline. But it would also cause even more suffering for expatriates’ relatives and friends living in Venezuela.
For Carlina Cabeza, who organized an unofficial July 16 vote in Bloomfield to support or oppose Mr. Maduro’s constituent assembly, the sanctions are a risk worth taking.
“I think we should try everything,” she said. “Yes, it’s true that people will suffer. But it could work. And at this stage, we have to try anything. With all the bad things that have already happened, whatcan we lose?”
Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli said the vote is an attempt for Mr. Maduro to stay in power “forever” and become a dictator. And though he knows possible sanctions will hurt, he wants Mr. Maduro out.
“It’s gonna hurt everyone,” Mr. Cervelli said. “It’s not only gonna hurt the politicians, it’s gonna hit everyone because there’s a lot of poverty, and if there’s not a lot of money coming into the country, then it’s going to get worse. But there has to be pressure from everyone because what they’re doing is not right and it’s illegal.”
Observers in the oil field disagree. Chet Thompson, American Fuel and Petroleum Manufacturers president who wrote a letter to Mr. Trump sent Thursday, said sanctions are a bad idea for the U.S.
Mr. Thompson said in the letter that sanctions limiting U.S. imports of Venezuelan crude oil “would disadvantage many U.S. refineries, particularly those in the Gulf Coast and East Coast regions, that have optimized to utilize sour crudes produced in Venezuela.”
Venezuela currently sells over 700,000 barrels of oil to the U.S. a day — about onethird of its total oil output — which head to refineries on the Gulf Coast, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oil exports from Venezuela to the U.S. make up 40 percent of its oil revenues, which encompass 95 percent of the country’s total money from exports. Without oil Venezuela would spiral into harsher economic conditions.
The White House has options as to how it wants to levy sanctions on Venezuela. The most extreme is an oil embargo, which would completely cut off petroleum products imported to the U.S. from Venezuela. Another option is a ban on petroleum products from the U.S. to Venezuela. This would force the country to find other oil-producing and refining countries from which to get the U.S.-refined lighter grades of crude oil it mixes with its heavier “sour” crudes for export.
Anothercould restrict Venezuela’s national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., from using U.S. banks and dealing with U.S. businesses, much like the sanctions already placed on the 13 high ranking individuals.
But regardless of the economic sanctions, Mr. Maduro is playing a dangerous political game, said Anibal Perez-Linan, a University of Pittsburgh political science professor with the Center for Latin American Studies. As the government closes more institutional channels for the political opposition to operate in, he said, it is likely the formal opposition parties will become less relevant and give way to more social forms of opposition.
And if economic pressures on the Maduro regime mount further as they would with sanctions, Mr. Perez- Linan said, the question will be whether these social forms of opposition will resort to violence.
“I think that many groups in Venezuela understand that organization of the opposition has to be nonviolent,” he said.