#TrumpDesbloqueaVenezuela the 'trending topic' tag with which users denounce US sanctions - MPPRE

#TrumpDesbloqueaVenezuela the ‘trending topic’ tag with which users denounce US sanctions

This Monday, the hashtag #TrumpDesbloqueaVenezuela, with which Twiter users denounce the consequences of US sanctions. on the South American country, it has been placed in the first place of the trends of the social network in Venezuela. With this label, which has also been positioned in English with #TrumpUnblockVenezuela and on the @DanbloqueaVE account of the popular social network, Internet users have shared information about the unilateral restrictive measures of the Donald Trump government against Venezuela and its possible «catastrophic consequences», as Jorge Arreaza has called them. Since last January 23, when the opposition deputy Juan Guaidó was declared «president in charge», Washington has exponentially increased the sanctions against the Caribbean country with the objective of exerting pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House considers «illegitimate», thus he leaves the Presidency, despite the fact that his six-year term ends in 2025.

Arreaza in Russia

The Venezuelan foreign minister, who is in Russia, said at a press conference at the Venezuelan Embassy in Moscow, after the meeting with his counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, that the «criminal blockade» of the Donald Trump Administration «seeks a change of power in the Venezuelan government based on the suffering of the people». «We are going to insist on diplomacy, in the dialogue to unblock the Venezuelan economy», he said, referring to the billions withheld in international banks «that seek to stifle the Venezuelan economy».

The complaints of users

After these affirmations of the Foreign Minister, the users have shared information through this label about the consequences of economic and financial sanctions. The Spanish political scientist Arantxa Tirado asked her followers to ask themselves the reason for the coercive measures on an economy supposedly «poorly managed» and that «does not work». In the same way, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said that the «illegal blockade» prevents the Venezuelan economy from mobilizing millions of dollars «necessary to pay for imports of food and medicine». Some netizens asked to join this initiative and disseminate the data they had on punitive measures and others expressed their support for the initiative. https://twitter.com/elangell999/status/1125379633761914881 It was also used to post images of people abroad who support the Maduro government and who reject restrictions by the US. On the other hand, the Twitter account @DesbloqueaVe was created to upload information about the financial and economic siege that the South American country is going through. Among the shared trills, there is one of the Venezuelan foreign minister where he affirms that the «blockade or sanctions» are «an unprecedented violation of international law and a new form of war». In this account, which until now has almost 500 followers, the amount that a group of international banks have withheld from the Venezuelan State was published. https://twitter.com/DesbloqueaVE/status/1125373108741988354 Other trills refer to issues of health and reproductive control, which have also been affected. An user uploaded an infographic where it is asserted that nine million boxes of food, subsidized and distributed by the State, have not been able to enter the country, as a consequence of the sanctions, as well as 300,000 doses of insulin. https://twitter.com/LaBunkeT/status/1125421313017950209 Another graph shows that Venezuela has lost 300 million dollars in the food sector since 2014. For its part, the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center (Celag) has stated in a report that the total losses since 2013 would correspond to GDP of a year and a half. https://twitter.com/DesbloqueaVE/status/1125424513435435008

The sanctions would have caused 40,000 dead

In the last three months, USA has issued sanctions against Caracas, among others, it have frozen some 7,000 million dollars in assets to the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA); in addition, they gave control to Guaidó over the assets of the Venezuelan Government in the banks in US territory and sanctioned the Economic and Social Development Bank (Bandes) of Venezuela, and its subsidiaries in Uruguay and Bolivia, and the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV). Similarly, a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) revealed that punitive measures, applied since August 2017 against the Latin American country, are responsible for the deaths of approximately 40,000 people they have not had access to food, medicine and treatment of chronic diseases.