The Trump administration plans to control future sales of Venezuelan oil and hold the proceeds in US accounts, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, making the clearest statement yet on Washington’s strategy to bring the impoverished nation’s crude to market and manage its most valuable resource. Wright, who spoke at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. conference in Miami Wednesday, said initially the barrels would come from crude Venezuela is holding in storage, which has been filling up amid the US blockade and threatening to force some production off line. “We’re just going to get that crude moving again and sell it,” Wright said.
Cuba has to deal with worse sanctions and has always done better than Venezuela ever since Chávez took control, but especially under Maduro. Ideology aside, Maduro is neither well-intentioned nor competent. Any regime with him at the head would do poorly, no matter if it were socialist, capitalist, liberal, authoritarian, democratic, a theocracy or anything else, and regardless of sanctions.