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U.S. bans transactions with Venezuela's digital currency
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order barring any U.S.-based financial transactions involving Venezuela's new petro cryptocurrency, as U.S. officials warned that it was a "scam" by President Nicolas Maduro's government to further undermine democracy in the OPEC country.
"The 'petro' is a desperate effort by a corrupt regime to defraud international investors," a senior U.S. administration official told reporters, strongly warning that any transactions in the petro digital currency would violate U.S. sanctions. "Investing in the 'petro' should be viewed as directly supporting this dictatorship and its attempts to undermine the democratic order in Venezuela," the official added.
Trump's order bars "all transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token," issued by Venezuela's government since Jan. 9, the White House said in a statement.
Also at the New York Times.
Previously: Enter the "Petro": Venezuela to Launch Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Wednesday March 21 2018, @07:29AM
Venezuela-Related Sanctions. [state.gov] began under Obama. It looks like Trump strengthened them to cut trade. This new step seems like just a minor step to ban something that could be used to circumvent earlier sanctions.
Regardless of how you feel about the sanctions approach, it's one of the least crazy things Trump has done. No, I didn't vote for him. I'm just annoyed at seeing a fairly standard US foreign policy approach carried over from a previous administration being lumped in with the other insanity.
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