Some of the dirty tactics used by the USA on nations it wants brought down

Will Venezuela prevail and come out stronger or will it go under?  Only time will tell.


From Misión Verdad translated and published at TeleSur
US Pressures, Threatens Against Venezuela Debt Restructuring

The U.S. Treasury has organized an assault via U.S. banks withholding notes of credit U.S. oil refineries need to be able to pay for Venezuela’s crude oil.

The U.S. Treasury Department has threatened holders of Venezuelan bonds that it would be problematic for them to deal with Venezuela’s executive Vice President Tareck El Aissami and the country’s Economy Minister Simon Zerpa, also head of finance for Venezuela’s State oil company PDVSA. El Aissami and Zerpa are Venezuela’s main financial negotiators and the U.S. government applied sanctions against the two fo them this year.

The development followed President Nicolas Maduro invitation to Venezuela’s creditors last week to meet in Caracas on Nov. 13 for talks on restructuring payment of US$60 billion of Venezuela’s bonds.

A financial terror campaign on steroids
Venezuela’s debt payments this year anticipate projections for payment of around US$8 billion in 2018 which will now be restructured.
Even though creditors are not forbidden under General License 3 of President Donald Trump’s Aug. 3 decree from participating in talks on Venezuela’s bonds, the U.S. Treasury has now said that any deal with El Aissami and Zerpa, both on the U.S. Treasury’s list of Specially Designated Persons, could be problematic, without referring directly to negotiations as such or to whether a possible agreement might break U.S. law. The U.S. Treasury went on to note that possible penalties for U.S. citizens could mean up to 30 years in prison or fines of up to US$5 million. In the case of financial institutions, the fines could go up to US$10 million.

In coordination with the U.S. Treasury pronouncements, Venezuela’s opposition media have supplemented the U.S. threats with “anonymous statements” supposedly implying that creditors are not planning to participate in the Nov. 13 meeting in Caracas allegedly on account of lack of comfortable facilities for the investors and fears about violence in Venezuela’s capital.

Along with news of this latest U.S. threat against Venezuela, international financial media also reported that on Nov. 8 a creditor of PDVSA’s 2017 bonds asked the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to determine whether the oil company had fallen into non-payment which would activate insurance payouts for credit non-compliance.

The Venezuelan authorities announced on Nov. 3 the start of the procedure to pay US$1.1 billion in capital and interest on the 2017 bond that expired on Nov. 2......