The latest news on this front comes from Democracy Digest.

The United States hit Venezuela with a new round of sanctions on Tuesday, targeting the crisis-battered country’s ties with Cuba, which supports Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, AFP reports:

The move is the latest US escalation of sanctions aimed at undermining support for Maduro, who is grappling with a political and economic crisis that the United Nations says has left a quarter of Venezuela’s 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid. ..The new sanctions hit four companies — three registered in Panama and one in Cyprus — that ship oil from Venezuela to Cuba, and names four specific oil tankers.

“Maduro’s Cuban benefactors provide a lifeline to the regime and enable its repressive security and intelligence apparatus,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people and should not be used as a bargaining tool to prop up dictators and prolong the usurpation of Venezuelan democracy,” he added.

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