Biden targets Nicaragua’s gold
Aims to increase pressure on Ortega
MIAMI — The Biden administration is ratcheting up pressure on President Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian rule in Nicaragua, threatening a ban on Americans from doing business in the nation’s gold industry, raising the possibility of trade restrictions, and stripping the US visas of some 500 government insiders.
The actions, stemming from an executive order signed by President Biden on Monday, are the latest and perhaps most aggressive attempt by the United States to hold the former Sandinista guerrilla leader accountable for his continued attacks on human rights and democracy in the Central American country as well his continued security cooperation with Russia.
Previous rounds of sanctions have focused on Ortega, his wife, and vice president, Rosario Murillo, and members of their family and inner circle. But none of those moves have managed to loosen Ortega’s grip on power. The latest target by Ortega’s government: the Roman Catholic Church. In August, security raided the residence of a bishop, detaining him and several other clergy.
The new executive order greatly expands a Trump-era decree declaring Ortega’s hijacking of democratic norms, undermining of the rule of law, and use of political violence against opponents a threat to the US national security.
Together with the Treasury Department’s simultaneous sanctioning of Nicaragua’s General Directorate of Mines, the order all but makes it illegal for Americans to do business with Nicaragua’s gold industry. It’s the first time the United States has identified a specific sector of the economy as potentially off-limits and can be expanded in the future to include other industries believed to fill the government’s coffers.
The executive order also paves the way for the United States to restrict investment and trade with Nicaragua — a move recalling the punishing embargo imposed by the United States in the 1980s during Ortega’s first stint as president following the country’s bloody civil war.
“The Ortega-Murillo regime’s continued attacks on democratic actors and members of civil society and unjust detention of political prisoners demonstrate that the regime feels it is not bound by the rule of law,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “We can and will use every tool at our disposal to deny the Ortega-Murillo regime the resources they need to continue to undermine democratic institutions.”
Monday’s action could signal the start of a new offensive taking aim at the broader economy — something the Biden administration has been reluctant to pursue for fear of adding to the country’s hardships and unleashing more migration. For the fiscal year that ended in September, US border agents encountered Nicaraguans nearly 164,000 times at the southwest border — more than triple the level for the previous year.
At the same time, frustrations have been building in Washington over the way Nicaragua’s economic elites have largely remained silent amid Ortega’s crackdown.
The Biden administration’s targeting of the gold industry could sap Ortega’s government of one of its biggest sources of revenue. Gold was the country’s largest export in 2020 and the country, already the largest producer of the precious metal in Central America, is looking to double output in the next five years.
Additionally, the State Department will also be pulling the US visas of more than 500 Nicaraguan individuals and their family members who either work for the Ortega government or help formulate, implement, and benefit from policies that undermine democracy in the country, US officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the action.