Venezuela Slams US Senate Decision to Extend Sanctions

The Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official response on Friday rejecting as illegal and interventionist the decision by U.S. lawmakers to extend three more years of sanctions against key officials of the Venezuelan government. 

“Venezuela rejects the unilateral, illegitimate decision by the U.S. senate to extend sanctions on Venezuela until 2019,” the ministry stated on Friday through a press release.  

The Venezuelan government issued the statement following a move by the U.S. Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who on Wednesday proposed to extend the sanctions on the Venezuelan government.  

The extension passed in the Senate by unanimous consent. 

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President Barack Obama renewed sanctions against Venezuela last March, which referrs to the South American state as "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

During his comments on Wednesday, the Florida senator stated, "there will be an effort here, I hope, in the next day or so, to extend those sanctions for another three years.”

In efforts to impose additional sanctions, Rubio called on allies within the Organization of American States or OAS to support actions against Venezuela.

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“The United States should ask our allies in the region, countries that receive an extensive amount of aid from this country—Haiti, Colombia, the Central American nations, our neighbors up north in Canada, among others—to support this effort,” Rubio added.

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According to a 2014 Congressional Research Service report, the United States is the organization’s largest donor, contributing nearly US$65.7 million in fiscal year 2013, which is equivalent to 41 percent of the total 2013 OAS budget.

"We have poured millions of dollars into Haiti’s reconstruction. We should use that as leverage to ask them to support something happening at the OAS," Rubio added.

Meanwhile, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly called for talks with the United States to improve relations.

Venezuela and the U.S. have had strained relations since Hugo Chavez became president in 1999, with Washington supporting the right-wing opposition that has tried multiple times to overthrow the socialist government and destabilize the country.