Trump Says May Impose a Naval Blockade on Venezuela

President Trump, wandering further afield of his noninterventionist election campaign promise, may soon impose an illegal military blockade on Venezuela.

“Trump told reporters on Thursday that he was considering a blockade or quarantine of the Latin American country, where the U.S. has been trying for months to unseat Maduro. He didn’t elaborate.”

According to an unnamed Trump administration official, the blockade will continue until Nicolas Maduro abdicates and Juan Guaido becomes the neoliberal recognized leader.

In response, Maduro said he’s “ready for battle,” whatever that means.

Maduro repudiates #Trump's quarantine threat, says #Venezuela ready for battle https://t.co/7I6N4QPyQj pic.twitter.com/uKv0fK3PYK

— Press TV (@PressTV) August 3, 2019

“The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases,” writes Jeffrey D. Sachs of Asia Times.

The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the state oil company PDVSA, the country’s main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January this year, was more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. A recent detailed analysis of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated previous economic mismanagement, contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse (output is down by half since 2016), hunger, and rising mortality.

In short, the latest imperial president will kill an unknown number of Venezuelans in order to get the preferred government installed in Caracas.

Military blockades are recognized as acts of war under the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909. The neocons and neolibs don’t do international law unless it works in favor of empire. Congress, naturally, is left out of the equation, having long ago waived its responsibility under the Constitution.

In 1863, when President Lincoln imposed a blockade on the Confederacy during the War of Secession, the Supreme Court ruled it a crime in “The Prize Cases.”

The power of declaring war is the highest sovereign power, and is limited to the representative of the full sovereignty of the nation. It is limited in the United States to its Congress exclusively; and the authority of the President to be the Commander-in-Chief….to take that the law be faithfully executed, is to be taken in connection with the exclusive power given to Congress to declare war, and does not enable the President to (do it) or to introduce, without Act of Congress, War or any of its legal disabilities or liabilities, on any citizen of the United States.

Violations of the Constitution, its articles and amendments, are now routine, so much so, especially following the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the Bretton Woods neoliberal scheme, that the founding document is little more than a quaint tourist attraction at the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom (sic) in DC.

Thankfully, a few Americans are standing up and resisting ongoing economic warfare against Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Russia, and China.

Because the US government refuses dialogue with Venezuela’s elected government and US corporate media acts as an arm of Washington’s brutal regime change policy, it’s our duty to break the blockade. @MaxBlumenthal addresses media at Miraflores palace https://t.co/NHzcA4GjkL

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) August 2, 2019

Source: Another Day in the Empire