Blockading Venezuela’s oil shipments finally gives teeth to a sanctions regime that dictator Nicolas Maduro has only scoffed at, offering real hope for a peaceful transition of power.
The criminal gang ruling from Caracas has operated under a variety of sanctions for two decades, yet the Chavez-Maduro regime is still firmly in control.
Targeted and political sanctions — mostly aimed at high-ranking individuals — did little to moderate political repression, subversion of neighboring nations or plotting with the gangs that rule Cuba and Iran.
In the Biden years, Washington pursued a feckless policy of sanctions relief, allowing Caracas to trade oil and gold.
But hopes that Venezuela would rejoin the international order as a respectable partner were dashed in 2024 when Maduro declared himself the victor of (yet another) openly corrupt presidential election.
President Donald Trump’s “total blockade” of Venezuela’s “shadow fleet,” which delivers cut-rate proscribed Venezuelan and Iranian oil to China, comes as the global consensus is hardening against Maduro’s regime.
There’s a reason why the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, and why Chile’s newly elected president announced full support for US military action in the Caribbean.
US critics of the blockade, like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), have been cheerleading for the Maduro regime for years because they see it as a leader of global resistance against American hegemony; they even shoehorn their obsession with Palestine into the case, absurdly claiming that Israel is pushing Trump to go to war.
But a firm hand with Venezuela is highly indicated as Maduro ramps up his repression: All of North America and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Venezuela, and most of South America bars Maduro and his henchmen from entry.
It’s high time the US put its navy where its mouth is: Starving Maduro of oil exports is the right move.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
