Trump administration concerned about US firms giving financial ‘lifeline’ to Venezuela

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration is concerned about any action by US companies that provides a financial lifeline to Venezuela’s government, senior White House officials told Reuters, after Goldman Sachs Group Inc came under fire for purchasing US$ 2.8 billion of state oil company bonds at a steep discount.

Venezuela’s political opposition and some US lawmakers have condemned the purchase of so- called “hunger bonds” as a way to prop up President Nicolas Maduro’s cash- strapped government, accused of being behind food shortages affecting millions of Venezuelans in a worsening crisis.

The New York- based investment bank said last week that it never transacted directly with Venezuelan authorities when it bought the bonds of oil firm PDVSA for pennies on the dollar.

“We’re concerned by anything that provides a lifeline for the status quo,” one US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. “I would prefer them not to.”

A second administration official said US companies making Venezuela investments should “think morally about what they’re doing.”

The officials said they did not know whether the Trump administration had made its case directly to Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs did not respond to a request for comment.

Julio Borges, head of Venezuela’s opposition- led Congress, accused Goldman Sachs on Monday of “aiding and abetting the country’s dictatorial regime.”

In a letter to Goldman Sachs President Lloyd Blankfein, Borges said Congress would open an investigation into the transaction and he would recommend “to any future democratic government of Venezuela not to recognise or pay these bonds.”

Eliot Engel, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, urged President Donald Trump on Friday to condemn Goldman Sachs for the bond purchase.

The Trump administration, which has several former Goldman Sachs executives in senior roles, has yet to officially comment on the issue.

Engel said the bond purchase allowed Maduro and his associates to “regularly abuse the human rights of Venezuelan citizens while at the same time blocking their access to muchneeded food and medicine.”

Venezuela’s opposition won control of the legislature in a 2015 election, but the progovernment Supreme Court has annulled all its measures and essentially stripped its powers. The country has been engulfed in two months of anti- government unrest, which has left more than 60 people dead on both sides. — Reuters