US declares its aim to overthrow socialism in Venezuela
On 9 March President Obama signed an Executive Order declaring ‘a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela’ and imposed sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials.
The declaration has sent out a clear signal that the US priority in Venezuela is to overturn the elected government. It is similar to an order signed by Ronald Reagan in 1985 against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which added Presidential authority to that campaign to destabilise a country which at the time, like Venezuela today, was trying to consolidate its socialist revolution.