On Dec. 11, the Trump administration imposed new sanctions on three nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores. Two had been arrested for cocaine trafficking in 2016 and released under the Biden Administration, and the third is involved with Venezuela’s oil industry. In announcing the sanctions, reported Axios, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a statement: “Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people. These sanctions undo the Biden administration’s failed attempt to make a deal with Maduro, enabling his dictatorial and brutal control at the expense of the Venezuelan and American people.”
The Treasury on Thursday also imposed sanctions on six supertankers which have allegedly loaded Venezuela crude oil recently.
“There’s a lot more where this came from,” a Trump administration insider told Axios. “Maduro, his family and his cronies have a choice: Stop the drug trafficking, stop the corruption, stop the dictatorship and leave the country—or pay the price.”
