Officials from the EU, Canada, the UK, several Latin American nations, and the US will meet in April to discuss strategies to ramp up economic pressure against Venezuela’s government.
US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has revealed[1] that he and officials from various Latin American countries, the EU, Canada, and the UK will meet in April over efforts to increase the economic pressure being applied to the regime governing Venezuela. He offered no indication as to whether cryptocurrencies, including any issued [2]by the Venezuelan state, would be discussed at the gathering.
To bolster sanctions already in place against the oil-rich nation's embattled leadership, US President Donald Trump recently signed[3] an executive order that forbade American citizens and residents from possessing or conducting trades involving the petro, an oil-backed digital asset which is currently being sold by Venezuela's government but has not yet been issued. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has suggested[4] that the petro's sale is an attempt to soften the impact of US sanctions.
At a March 22 press conference in Chile, Mnuchin reported that "We are having discussions with the EU about them putting sanctions and matching our sanctions. I think that's very important that they come along and we have a united front."
He also related that he had been involved in a discussion on Venezuela at the recently concluded G20[5] summit in Argentina.
The treasury secretary recently said[6] that the US and other G20 member states "need to be able to make sure that all the different major countries can monitor [cryptocurrency] transactions so that [the technology is] just not used for [the] illicit transactions of bad guys."
Adam Reese is a Los Angeles-based writer interested in technology, domestic and international politics, social issues, infrastructure and the arts. Adam is a full-time staff writer for ETHNews and holds value in Ether and BTC.
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