The Biden administration on Monday announced a series of steps it’s taking against Nicaragua in the most expansive sanctions on the country since the US rejected the results of last year’s Nicaraguan presidential election.
The State Department announced visa restrictions on over 500 Nicaraguan individuals and their family members. In a statement on the sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the measures target “members of Nicaraguan security services, such as the Nicaraguan National Police, penitentiary officials, judges, prosecutors, higher education officials, and non-government actors.”
Blinken said the individuals “enable” the alleged corruption of the government of President Daniel Ortega, who secured a fourth term in last year’s election. Blinken added that no member of the Nicaraguan government nor anyone who “facilitates” its alleged abuses should be able to enter the US.
The Treasury Department announced sanctions on the Nicaraguan government’s mining authority and a high-level government official. Also on Monday, President Biden signed an Executive Order that gives him the authority to sanction companies or individuals involved with Nicaragua’s gold industry, one of the country’s largest sources of revenue.
Biden’s order expands an emergency declaration originally issued by the Trump administration and is the first time the US has identified a specific industry in Nicaragua that it will target. The US could also expand the authority to include other industries, and US officials have previously said that Washington is considering banning all imports from Nicaragua.
Such strict measures could put Nicaragua under sanctions that amount to an economic embargo, similar to US policy against Cuba and Venezuela. History has shown that sanctions do little to hurt the government of the targeted nation but have a devastating impact on civilian populations.
The Washington Contras ever faithful to the second coming of Anastasio Somoza.
Well said Roberto!
The US has few friends around the world. The last 75 years bombing and waging economic warfare agains t.other nations has come full circle The US is running out of nations to intimidate and exploit.That is the only way Capitalism can or will survive.If the US does not have cheap labor or other countrys natural resources or guns to sell,where is the profit going to come.The economic and military alliane of BRICS with more nations joining spells trouble for the US. The demise of the US is a result of both our actions and inactions.Thge MIC knows if the union and military power of mostly Russia and China plus a few others succeeds leading to economic freedom what happens to the US.Shit out of luck
There are plenty of people in Nicaragua who remember the abuses of the Samosa dynasty.
My husband is from Nicaragua (and Cuba as well) and is all too familiar with the Somacistas…
Well of course. Biden probably had a choice between a round of golf and a round of sanctions and took the one that gets him off.
Nicaragua is unique. They are not sending many people to the southern border. Biden is just doing a balancing act, so more people leave Nicaragua for US.
FOX kvells when they see Venezuelans entering the U.S. from Mexico. To them it’s proof that socialism doesn’t work. They never even mention the U.S. economic war against Venezuela as being the cause.
The number of nations, governments, individuals, institutions, companies, and organizations now under one form or another of US “sanctions” is literally uncountable.
Here is a list of sanction “programs” (with each program consisting of far more than just one “sanction”) by the US Treasury:
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information
Here is another list, a list of lists, really, for sanctioned individual persons:
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/specially-designated-nationals-and-blocked-persons-list-sdn-human-readable-lists
Over 6,000 persons are said to be on these lists!
And here is yet another list, this one of “other sanctions” lists!
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/other-ofac-sanctions-lists
Notice that the first item is the “Consolidated Sanctions List,” and yet there are still eight more lists on this list of lists!
The USA is now so completely full of crap that it beggars the imagination.
Any time we “reject” another country’s elections you know there is a whole elaborate plan for a coup to install an American friendly dictator…. Maybe another invasion to go along with it.