Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Biden Extends Executive Order Deeming Venezuela a Threat to U.S. Security

On Wednesday, Biden renewed an Obama-era executive order from 2015 which considers Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” in addition to maintaining the “maximum pressure” economic sanctions imposed by Donald Trump.

Facebook Twitter Share

Yesterday, Joe Biden announced an extended executive order targeted at Venezuela, which according to the Biden administration “continues to represent an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

The original executive order was issued on March 8, 2015 by Barack Obama, implementing and extending sanctions that had been approved by Congress in December 2014. The executive order declared a “national emergency” with respect to the situation in Venezuela and said the country posed an “extraordinary risk” to the security of the United States.

In a letter to Congress, Biden states that “the circumstances described in Executive Order 13692, and subsequent Executive Orders issued with respect to Venezuela, have not improved… I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13692.”

Declaring a “national emergency” and that a country constitutes a threat to national security is a tool that allows the president of the United States, under certain circumstances, to go beyond what Congress has already passed to issue additional sanctions against a country.

Everyone knows that a country with the conditions of Venezuela, which has been decimated by one of the greatest economic and social crises of any country in the world, does not constitute any threat to the national security of the United States, which has an enormous military at its disposal. A military, which, by the way is deployed around the globe, and is currently engaged in direct aggression in Syria, carrying out the first military intervention of the Biden era.

The extension of this order shows that Biden is committed to continuing the aggressive policy of the Trump administration, which carried out a brutal offensive against Venezuela, supporting the attempted coup and going as far as to threaten military intervention in the country. Biden’s objective, with the extension of Obama’s executive order, is an attempt to bolster Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, represented by Juan Guaidó, that for some time now has been in retreat and in crisis. 

This extension of the executive order also comes after the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, held a video conference with Guaidó on Tuesday and indicated that he continues to consider Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela.

We already know the cynicism and hypocrisy of U.S. imperialism, especially when it preaches a discourse of human rights simply to justify its escalating interventionism. We see how even in his own country, in the 21st century, Biden maintains detention centers for migrant children akin to concentration camps, to mention only one example among thousands of others.

U.S. imperialism has never been interested in the situation of the working people of Venezuela, who are suffering the greatest violation of their rights at the hands of the Maduro government, an authoritarian and quasi-dictatorial regime that keeps dozens of workers imprisoned for fighting and condemns them to minimum wages that do not even reach one dollar a month.

While the Venezuelan people are already suffering great hardships due to Maduro’s anti-worker and anti-popular policies, the U.S. has no qualms about imposing imperialist economic sanctions that only aggravate this oppressive situation.

Repudiating Biden’s policy of interference and aggression with the extension of Obama’s executive orders and the maintenance of all the economic sanctions maintained by Donald Trump, which continue to aggravate the suffering of the people, is a fundamental issue. In the confrontation with Maduro and his authoritarian policies that violate the most elementary democratic rights of working people, we cannot rely on the policies of the right-wing opposition, which seeks nothing more than ties to imperialism and policies as criminal against workers as those of Maduro.

First published in Spanish on March 4 in La Izquierda Diario Venezuela.

Translation by Maryam Alaniz

Facebook Twitter Share

La Izquierda Diario Venezuela

Our Venezuelan sister site, part of the international network of La Izquierda Diario

Latin America

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

Declaration: End Imperialist Intervention in Haiti, Solidarity with the Haitian People

The “Multinational Security Support Mission” announced by the United States marks a new imperialist-colonial intervention in Haiti by the United States, the UN, and their allies.

The Fight against Javier Milei Has Set The Stage For a Whole New Wave of Struggle

The defeat of the Omnibus Law is a key victory for the movement against Javier Milei’s austerity plan and attacks on democratic rights. It shows that the working class and oppressed have the power to fight against the advance of the Far Right in Argentina and across the world.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

February 9, 2024

Defying Repression: Socialist Electeds in Argentina Show Us What Revolutionary Parliamentarism Looks Like

Workers in Argentina are defying police repression and fighting back against the far-right government’s shock therapy. Trotskyist members of congress are not just protesting inside the chamber — they are on the front lines of the demonstrations, getting pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets.

Nathaniel Flakin

February 9, 2024

MOST RECENT

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024