April 22 will be the next timeline that Venezuela’s President Nicholas Maduro will be mindful of in pursuit of his long-running quest to fend off Washington’s efforts to remove his administration from office. Using pressures designed to choke off Venezuela’s oil revenues, President Donald Trump’s weapons have left Venezuela perilously close to being on its economic knees.
Trump’s key tactical pursuit in his bid to remove the Venezuelan president from office has been to seek to systematically decouple Venezuela from the global oil industry, a strategy which, if it is successful, will effectively push the country’s economy into an even deeper crisis than it finds itself at this time.
Largely for reasons that have to do with the losses which it will suffer if and when it departs Venezuela, President Trump has been, up until now, exempting one of the USA’s powerhouse oil companies, Chevron, from his administration’s directive to other US companies to quit Venezuela. Up to this time, Chevron’s presence in Venezuela persists courtesy of a succession of exemptions authorised by Washington.
