Iran Press/America: The new sanctions are the latest push in six months of efforts to oust Maduro, whose 2018 re-election has been deemed illegitimate by the United States and most Western nations.
Maduro’s son has been involved in propaganda and censorship, has profited from Venezuelan mines, and helped pressure the military to keep humanitarian aid out of the country, the Treasury Department claimed.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that Maduro relies on his son Nicolasito and others close to his regime to maintain a stranglehold on the economy, Iran Press reported.
“Treasury will continue to target complicit relatives of illegitimate regime insiders profiting off of Maduro’s corruption,” said Mnuchin, who is in Osaka, Japan, with President Donald Trump for a G20 summit.
The Venezuelan government denounced the new measures as “illegal” and said they had the “dark aim” of trying to directly attack Maduro’s family after the Trump administration’s previous attempts to overthrow the socialist leader had failed.
The government “rejects the continued attacks by the Trump administration that seek to undermine, unsuccessfully, the spirit and will of a people determined to take the reins of their own destiny,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.
Washington has thrown its support behind opposition leader Juan Guaido, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, who invoked the country’s constitution in January to declare himself interim president.
Maduro has retained the backing of the majority of people, military and other institutions, and calls Guaido a Washington puppet.
The new sanctions come as Trump holds a series of meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the G20.
Trump raised the subject of Venezuela with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backs Maduro, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Guaido supporter, on the first day of the summit.
Asked whether momentum had been lost in efforts to oust Maduro, Trump told reporters: “No, not at all. Things take time.” 213/
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