US to sanction Maduro-aligned officials, to put pressure on Venezuela’s president to accept election results

(CNN) — The United States announced new individual sanctions Wednesday on more than 20 officials aligned with Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, to put pressure on Maduro to accept the results of Venezuela’s July presidential election, senior administration officials said in a briefing with reporters.

Thursday marks exactly four months from the July election, and senior officials believe the new sanctions will put pressure on Venezuelan officials to break ranks from the Maduro government and facilitate a democratic transition in that country.

The new round of sanctions target military officials in the Bolivarian National Guard, Bolivarian National Police and other branches of the security apparatus, the US officials said.

Among the officials sanctioned Wednesday are Maduro’s newly-installed chief of staff, Anibal Coronado, Communication Minister Freddy Ñañez, and the director of intelligence services Alexis Rodriguez.

Widespread oil sanctions and general licenses granting certain companies, such as US oil major Chevron, to do business in Venezuela remain in place but are “constantly being reviewed,” one of the officials said.

Maduro’s government said in a statement that it rejected the sanctions, calling them “coercive” and targeted toward “patriots who have dedicated themselves to safeguard the peace, stability, economic recovery and (Venezuela’s) national unity.”

Caracas also described the measure as “a desperate act by a decadent and erratic government, which seeks to hide its resounding electoral failure and the serious social crisis in which it leaves the country,” in reference to the Biden administration.

The announcement of the sanctions comes just one week after the United States has formally recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as the country’s president-elect following the disputed July 28 presidential election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on X.

“The Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made Edmundo Gonzalez the president-elect. Democracy demands respect for the will of the voters,” the top US diplomat posted while participating in the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Asked if there has been any communication with President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team about Venezuela, one of the officials sidestepped.

“We’re undertaking these actions with respect to Venezuela as part of the Biden administration’s engagement in advancing democracy in Venezuela and also holding the Venezuelan regime and regime actors accountable for practices that include political repression, subverting the democratic will of the people,” one official said. “We obviously are aware that there will be a change in administration on January 20^th, and at that juncture a new administration can take up this issue with Venezuela.”

Most of cabinet members in Venezuela have been subjects of sanctions from the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control since the precipitation of the Venezuelan crisis in 2017.

Maduro himself has been sanctioned since July 31, 2017; three years later, the Department of Justice formally charged Maduro for crimes related to drug trafficking and terrorism. To this day, US prosecutors offer a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the Venezuelan strongman.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

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