President Trump is facing substantial push back from several influential conservative groups for his move this week to aid Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order tightening financial restrictions on Venezuela as the White House moves to pressure socialist President Nicolás Maduro to step aside.
The White House said that Trump’s new executive order would impose “new sanctions on the Maduro regime, blocking all property of the Venezuelan government in the jurisdiction of the United States.”
The conservative groups, including Heritage Action, FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax Reform warned that it could interfere with a legal decision to let a Canadian firm owed money by Venezuela to take it from U.S.-based Citgo, an arm of Venezuela’s national oil company.
The executive order did not mention Citgo, but Guaidó tweeted, “Given this measure, CITGO and all its assets are protected. In addition, any debt that the regime intends to incur with assets of the Nation will be illegal. Anyone who wants to benefit from the crisis will be driven away.”
Because of an odd twist, Guaidó controls the Citgo board and has urged the administration to protect the U.S. refining unit, including from legal decisions that would let Venezuela’s creditors tap into the wealthy company.
Noah Weinrich, a spokesman for Heritage Action for America, said, “As the Trump administration formulates its reconstruction plans of Venezuela, it should not act against U.S. entities that have legitimate claims against the Venezuelan government.”
He further told Secrets, “The U.S. should not implement policies that undermine investor confidence. Instead, they should be working with the interim and transition governments to restructure their debts and deal with their obligations in a legal process that upholds property rights and does not lead to financial volatility.”
The letter from the conservatives said, “If the United States takes action that hurts legitimate creditor claims, especially those claims that are already before the U.S. Courts, investors will have no reason to believe that future investment would be protected from theft.”
It was signed by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, Jessica Anderson, vice president of Heritage Action, Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union, James L. Martin, the founder of 60 Plus Association, Saul Anuzis, president of 60 Plus Association, and David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
“As the Trump administration continues to support democracy and the end of tyrannical socialist regimes in Venezuela, we urge you to reject any requests for executive action to devalue or eliminate longstanding private property rights that are protected by the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, which even multilateral actions cannot supersede. Instead, the administration should urge the interim Venezuela government to follow existing processes to restructure its debt and to deal with its legitimate creditors within the framework set out by existing legal regimes and court processes,” added the letter.
