The American administration is “tightening the nuts” in the shipping industry, forcing companies to refuse to cooperate with Caracas.
It is said in the Reuters article.
The U.S. imposed punitive measures against the Venezuelan people to overthrow the elected president of the republic, however, the article stresses that Maduro was able to stay in power, “disappointing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Against this background, Washington has been working for several months on mechanisms of pressure on the maritime industry to tighten control over the implementation of sanctions. As the U.S. Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams told the agency, this is done to isolate Venezuela.
“You will see that most shipowners and insurers and captains are just going to turn their backs on Venezuela“, – the official said. – “It’s just not worth the trouble or the risk to them”.
The U.S. is now putting pressure not only on shipping companies, but also on insurers, certification organizations and even the states under whose flag ships go to Venezuela.
Lloyd’s Register, one of the world’s leading ship classifiers, said it had to stop providing services to eight tankers that traded with Venezuela.
Abrams, in turn, proudly states that the pressure on the maritime industry is working. According to him, some companies were literally asking Washington to remove their ships from the blacklist because they had lost their licenses when the ships were on the high seas.
“U.S. sanctions have resulted in Venezuela’s oil exports reaching their lowest level in 80 years”, – Reuters reports. – “This has resulted in the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro depriving him of his main source of income, and the authorities lacked the money to import essential goods such as food and medicine.”
Earlier, News Front reported that Caracas was trying to obtain the return of Venezuelan gold, which is stored in the Bank of England. The British regulator keeps $1 billion worth of gold belonging to the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Caracas wanted to use the precious metal to buy food and medical equipment for a republic suffering from both the pandemic and American sanctions. It was not even possible to get the gold back in court.