The U.S. is considering fresh sanctions on Venezuela following disputed results in the country’s presidential election, with measures to be released if President Nicolas Maduro fails to comply with Washington’s demands for greater transparency on the vote counting, people familiar with discussions said on Tuesday.
Options could include individual sanctions or U.S. travel bans on Venezuelan officials, including those linked to the election. The measures could later escalate to other types of sanctions if deemed necessary, the sources said.
Many countries and election observers have since Sunday called for the complete results to be published before they will recognize the outcome.
The head of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed long-ruling socialist Maduro the winner, even though opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez is also claiming victory.
The timing of the next U.S. steps remains uncertain. The White House declined comment. The U.S. State and Treasury departments did not immediately answer Reuters’ questions on the subject.
Some board members of Venezuela’s CNE have been sanctioned by Washington when in previous positions. Washington in April also snapped back sanctions on the energy industry that it had broadly eased in October, which leaves Washington with few options for hitting the OPEC country’s key economic sectors.
In a briefing on Monday, senior U.S. officials said that electoral manipulation had stripped Maduro’s claim of victory of “any credibility,” and left the door open to new sanctions.
“We do have a number of options and considerations that we can bring to bear on this situation as we see what the decisions are that are made by the National Electoral Council in the coming days with regard to the release of the data that has been mentioned already,” a senior U.S. official said. “So that is really going to be, I think, a critical juncture.”
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston and Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Editing by Oliver Griffin and Ros Russell)