In an interview with BBC Mundo’s Daniel Garcia Marco on February 10th, I argue that while we do not know if U.S. oil sanctions will lead to a fracture in the Maduro regime, we absolutely do know that the measures risk deepening the suffering of the Venezuelan people.
The risk of these oil sanctions is that they reinforce Maduro’s attempts to absolve himself of blame for the deep corruption and mismanagement that led to the current economic crisis, and instead blame it on an external-driven “economic war”. They also risk distracting from multilateral efforts like the Lima Group and the International Contact Group, aimed at a peaceful democratic transition.