US sanctions more relatives, associates of Venezuelan President Maduro

As the Trump administration mounts pressure on Caracas and continues to bolster US forces on Venezuela’s borders, the US Department of the Treasury has announced new sanctions against a number of Venezuelan presidents’ relatives and associates.

More than 100 people have been killed by US military attacks on boats off the nation’s coast, which were continued as a result of the sanctions announced on Friday. Venezuelan oil tankers have also been seize by the US military, and all ships entering and leaving Venezuelan ports are being blocked by US naval forces.

US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stated in a statement that “Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability.”

Bessent continued, “The Trump Administration will continue to target the organizations that support his illegitimate dictatorship.”

On December 11, a previous round of US sanctions that also targeted six Venezuela-flagged oil tankers and shipping companies named seven people who are relatives or associates of Malpica Flores, a nephew of Maduro, and Ramon Carretero, a Panamanian businessman, were named in the new sanctions.

Flores, who is one of three of Maduro’s nephews by marriage and is known as “narco-nephews” by the US Treasury Department, is wanted because he “has been repeatedly linked to corruption at Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA,” the Treasury said in a statement.

Bessent claimed that this was the reason for enraging sanctions against additional family members and associates of the president because it was not immediately clear how Flores’ involvement in Venezuela’s state-run oil company related to “propping up Nicolas Maduro’s rogue narco-state.”

The US has argued that the country’s military action in the area, including the strikes on ships in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, which international law experts claim constitute extrajudicial killings, is primarily due to its efforts to combat drug trafficking.

Venezuela’s oil reserves, which are the largest in the world, appear to be the Trump administration’s main priority, despite repeated references to drug trafficking. Since the US began to impose sanctions on the nation during the first Trump administration, the reserves have largely been untapped.

Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and adviser to the homeland security, claimed Washington owns Venezuela’s oil last week.

Miller claimed on X that the oil industry in Venezuela was the result of American sweat, ingenuity, and labor. He continued, “The largest recorded theft of American wealth and property was its tyrannical expropriation.”

Venezuela’s oil industry is the target of US sanctions, which have caused an economic crisis and increased unease with Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and who has led the country since.

Maduro, for his part, has accused the Trump administration of “fabricating a new eternal war” aimed at “regime change” and seizing Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Venezuela is also subject to targeted sanctions that the European Union renewed last week through 2027.

The first European sanctions were implemented in 2017 and include travel bans and asset freezes for people connected to state repression.