Washington’s crippling sanctions on Venezuela remain in place despite one of the country’s worst-ever natural disasters, Brett Wilkins reports.
President Donald Trump on Jan. 3 at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, following his administration’s illegal invasion of Venezuela and seizure of its president, Nicolas Maduro. (White House /Molly Riley)
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
Human rights groups have implored the United States and allied countries to lift all sanctions against Venezuela — which experts say have already killed tens of thousands of people — as the beleaguered South American country reels from Wednesday’s devastating earthquakes.
At least 589 people are dead and over 3,000 others injured, with those figures almost certain to keep rising, following a 7.2-magnitude temblor centered in San Felipe, Yaracuy — about 100 miles west of Caracas — and a 7.5-magnitude quake that struck less than a minute later, also in centered in Yaracuy.
The death toll from the devastating earthquake in Venezuela has surpassed 589.
Almost 3,000 people have been injured.
U.S. sanctions are making survival and recovery difficult, as medicine, foreign revenue, and imports are severely restricted.
The U.S. must lift them now. pic.twitter.com/wnbROLx7rb
— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 26, 2026
U.S. President Donald Trump, who authorized the illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, wrote on social media after the earthquakes that his administration “stands ready, willing, and able to help.”
“We will be there for our new and great friends,” Trump claimed.
Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president and acting president since his ouster, thanked the Trump administration for “offering support and solidarity to the people of Venezuela in the face of this tragedy that has plunged us into mourning.”
However, U.S. sanctions — first imposed during then-President George W. Bush’s second term while Hugo Chávez was leading Venezuela and ramped up under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations — remain in place, complicating relief efforts after one of the country’s worst-ever natural disasters.
While the Trump administration has issued narrow exemptions from sanctions to companies looking to profit from Venezuela’s crisis and copious natural resources, primarily oil, these waivers have not delivered broad relief to the people who need it most.
“Today’s catastrophe makes clear what we have long argued: When a country is deliberately weakened through economic warfare, its ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters is also weakened,” the U.S.-based peace group CodePink said in a statement. “The United States has a responsibility to help address the humanitarian consequences of the policies it has imposed.”
CodePink continued:
“Too often, we’ve seen the U.S. and other Western countries exploit natural disasters like this in order to deepen foreign control. In Haiti, the U.S. and its allies have repeatedly pushed militarization and politically conditioned aid instead of genuine recovery led by the country itself. In this moment, the world must refuse to allow Venezuela to be forced down the same path.
We also call on the administration to immediately lift all U.S. sanctions on Venezuela and release Venezuelan funds under US jurisdiction so they can be used for emergency relief, reconstruction, and recovery.”
“This is the time for cooperation, compassion, and respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty,” CodePink added. “We urge the international community to support relief efforts and stand with the Venezuelan people as they rebuild their homes, their communities, and their future.”
Rescue teams from across South America have begun to arrive in Venezuela to help after the devastating earthquake.
The UN has called the response from the region ‘superb’. pic.twitter.com/YDw40ykmYR
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 26, 2026
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said Thursday that “while the Trump administration has issued a series of general licenses to allow foreign businesses and banks to operate in Venezuela in spite of U.S. sanctions, the continued existence of these sanctions significantly discourages international economic and financial actors from expanding operations there.”
CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot said that “we must remember that Venezuela suffered the worst depression in the history of the world, without a war, due to illegal U.S. economic sanctions.”
“This deadly destruction was not a mistake, but an expected result that would happen to any country that was cut off by sanctions from the international financial system, and also from the vast majority of its foreign exchange earnings from exports,” he continued.
According to a 2019 CEPR report, as many as 40,000 Venezuelans died due to sanctions during the previous two years. The sanctions ostensibly targeted Maduro’s government, but made it much more difficult for millions of people to obtain food, medicine, and other necessities.
“Tens of thousands, and more likely hundreds of thousands, of Venezuelans died as a result of those sanctions,” Weisbrot said Thursday. “The United States is therefore obligated to help prevent further loss of life in Venezuela.”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer at Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
