ANALYSIS - Recognizing Opposition Leader Opens Door For US To Transfer Venezuelan Assets

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2019) President Donald Trump's announcement that the United States is recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela opens the way for Washington to transfer the country's assets to US-backed forces, analysts told Sputnik.

Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down and let Guaido assume the presidency. Maduro responded that Venezuela was severing diplomatic ties with the United States and giving 72 hours' notice to all US diplomatic and consular staff to leave the country.

Meanwhile, the number of people who were killed in clashes during the nationwide protests in Venezuela has increased to 16, local media reported on Wednesday.

The US Treasury Department has implemented sanctions over the past year targeting several Venezuelan government leaders which consisted of freezing their assets.

Lucas Koerner is a political analyst for Caracas-based Venezuelaanalysis.com - an independent organization with a leftist and grassroots perspective on the situation. Koerner believes the key question now is about who really has control and authority amid the tumult.

"The big question now is what power Guaido will truly yield," Koerner told Sputnik on Wednesday. "The fact that the US officially recognized him as the head of a presumably forthcoming 'transitional government,' could mean that US courts are obliged to transfer Venezuelan assets held in the US to opposition control."

These assets would include CITGO, the subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, Koerner pointed out.

"The same could apply to Venezuelan assets and accounts in other countries that follow the US' lead. The US may also impose further sanctions on Venezuelan oil, or even a total blockade, which would further deteriorate the situation," he said.

Trump's announcement on Wednesday marks a radical escalation of US regime change policy towards Venezuela, Koerner warned.

Venezuela President "Nicolas Maduro was elected on May 20 in a contest that part of the Venezuelan opposition decided to boycott. Guaido was appointed president of a National Assembly that is in contempt of court barely two weeks ago," Koerner said.

According to the opposition-aligned Datanalisis pollster, Venezuela's National Assembly has a 70 percent disapproval rating as of this past October, Koerner pointed out.

"Even the 'constitutional' arguments brought up by the opposition and figures like [US Senator] Marco Rubio are dubious at best, as in case of a vacant presidency, it would be the vice president, not the National Assembly president, who would assume office since Maduro has already been sworn in," he said.

Trump's announcement was a bold move that is bound to accelerate the political crisis in Venezuela, Koerner predicted.

"The United States and the Venezuelan opposition have made repeated calls for the armed forces to depose the Maduro government so that a 'transition,' can take place," he said.

Telesur English and Znet analyst Jim Emersberger also believes that Trump's announcement was the start of a strategy to give Venezuela's assets to US-backed forces.

"By recognizing Guaido... it open the doors to the United States also attempting to transfer US-based Venezuelan state assets, which are blocked from being used to raise money for Maduro's government, into opposition hands," Emersberger told Sputnik.

The idea was probably to give US-backed politicians in Venezuela even more money to use to finance the overthrow of Maduro's government, Emersberger observed.

"Of course this could go along with even more savage US-led attacks on Venezuela's economy. Trump's financial sanctions have already cost Maduro's government over $6 billion in revenues since August of 2017 in an economy that imported only $11.7 billion is 2018," , Emersberger said.

Some of the closest US allies in the region have immediately followed Trump's lead in recognizing Guaido as "interim president," Koerner observed, such as Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and other members of the so-called Lima Group.

"The recent tendency has been one where the US is more brazen in imposing its interests in the hemisphere, from ratcheting up regime change efforts in Venezuela to undoing the progress that had been achieved in US-Cuba relations," Koerner said. "These attempts have been emboldened by a regional turn to the right, symbolized by presidents such as Colombia's Ivan Duque, Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, and Argentina's Mauricio Macri who have proceeded to dismantle regional integration initiatives independent of Washington."

Emersberger noted countries like Canada were going along unreservedly with Trump's escalation.

"This is unsurprising when you consider the example of Haiti. In 2004, the globally discredited Bush administration teamed up with Canada and France to lead the overthrow [of] its democratically elected government in 2004. The US appreciates and needs the political cover provided by allies," he said.

Trump was carrying out an aggressive and destabilizing US policy in the Western Hemisphere, Emersberger emphasized.

"Trump... has helped cement the US role as judge, jury and executioner of governments in the region [and] being democratically elected offers very little defense against that," Emersberger said.

However, Koerner noticed that countries like Bolivia, Cuba and Russia have reiterated their support for Maduro and that Mexico has also refused to go along with US efforts after reverting to a non-interventionist foreign policy.

The Mexican Foreign Ministry in a statement on Wednesday said that Mexico will continue to recognize the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. According to the statement, Mexico will not participate in non-recognition of the government of a country which it has a diplomatic relations with based on the principles of non-interference, self-determination, and peaceful resolution of international disagreements.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in a statement on Facebook said the current events in Venezuela show the real attitude of the West towards international law and sovereignty of other states.