¿Serán efectivas las medidas de

Juan Felipe Sandoval S. Trump contra Maduro? Hay quienes AGOSTO 25-2019
creen que no
AGOSTO 25 DE 2019
20161015109 Dinero

APRIL 04 OF 2019 - 10:10 P.M

Will Trump's measures against Maduro be effective? There are those who believe
that no
Trump's new sanctions on the Maduro regime have made companies in Russia and
China give up buying more oil. But there is no certainty that this time they will work.
The new sanctions announced on August 5 by President Donald Trump against the
assets of Venezuela and senior officials of the government of Nicolás Maduro,
including those of the military that support him, have become a whip for the regime of
the neighboring country. With this new executive order, Trump froze the assets of the
Venezuelan government in the United States and incidentally the assets of senior
officials loyal to Maduro, to promote the return of democracy to Venezuela. But this
time the magnate's measures have an additional ingredient: they will extend the
sanctions to anyone who does business with the Chavista regime.
The announcement of these measures caused a real earthquake, whose repercussions are
just beginning to be seen. On the one hand, it led Maduro to suspend the dialogues he
had been holding with the opposition at the behest of the Norwegian government, until
the sanctions were lifted. And to accuse Juan Guaidó - the self-proclaimed interim
president of Venezuela, recognized by fifty countries - of motivating Washington to
adopt these measures that stifle the Venezuelan economy. On the other hand, Trump's
announcement caused some foreign companies that continued to negotiate with Maduro
to opt to stop their operations. They did not want to be targeted by the Washington
authorities. In that sense, for example, on August 19, one of the most powerful oil
traders, the China National Petroleum Corp, CNPC, canceled in August the oil
shipments from the state-owned PDVSA.
It is one of the largest buyers of crude oil globally, through its company China Oil.
When deciding to stop the purchases, it dealt a serious blow to Maduro's aspirations to
maintain its PDVSA oil sales operations, which generate the little income that the
regime receives to finance itself. It is still unknown if other companies in India and
Malaysia, which bought 46% of the Venezuelan oil sold by PDVSA, will make the
same decision. But everything suggests that the threat of possible sanctions will end up
deterring them as well as anyone who intends to negotiate with Venezuela. Except in
the case of medicines, food and clothing, the other operations for now are under the
magnifying glass of the United States. These sanctions could be considered the
strongest adopted by Washington against the Maduro regime. But because of the impact
they have caused in its closest circle, its medium-term effectiveness has received strong
questions.

Half solution
Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, commented in a recent
column in The New York Times that these measures "will only harm the people and
will not help reach an agreement between Nicolás Maduro and the opposition." He
mentions that similar measures taken with Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria have not
achieved the expected effects. Shifter even believes that these sanctions will exacerbate
the crisis of the Venezuelan economy and end up expelling many more emigrants. The
United Nations Organization (UN) has already said that Venezuelan migration reaches
 ¿Serán efectivas las medidas de
Juan Felipe Sandoval S. Trump contra Maduro? Hay quienes AGOSTO 25-2019
creen que no
AGOSTO 25 DE 2019
20161015109 Dinero

more than 4 million people fleeing the conditions of poverty and scarcity that permeate
the quality of life in that country.

According to the Infobae portal, which cites a report from the Institute of Economic
Research of the Andrés Bello Catholic University, the level of destruction of the
economy during the current government of Nicolás Maduro places Venezuela among
the biggest failures of an economy in history contemporary Indeed, by the end of this
year, GDP will represent only 39% of what it became in 2013. Meanwhile, prices are
growing at a rate of 40% per month and income poverty already affects two thirds of the
population. Some independent economists estimate that there could be more emigrants.
In a recent program of the Televen channel, economist Carlos Croes said that the
number of Venezuelans abroad has already increased by 5 million. Those who send
monthly remittances to their relatives so that they can cope with the poverty situation in
which the country is plunged. Accounts show that this year the economy could end up
more strangled. The current oil production, of just 734,000 barrels per day of oil,
according to Opep data, will reach this year an estimated income by the government and
some independent economists at US $ 15,000 million. However, part of these monies
will not reach the government coffers because they will be discounted from the debts
that Venezuela maintains with China and Russia, among other countries.