On Tuesday, President Joe Biden extended for an additional year the "Declaration of National Emergency" that his country has maintained against Venezuela since 2015.
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Through an Executive Order issued by then-President Barack Obama, this declaration asserts that the South American country "poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
The continued extension of the 2015 decree has allowed Washington to continue a blockade against Venezuela, exercised through hundreds of arbitrary and unilateral sanctions.
In response to the renewal of the Obama executive order and the unfair sanctions that come with it, Venezuelan Foreign Affaris Minister Yvan Gil issued the following statement:
"The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela vehemently rejects the renewal of the executive order that since 2015 has been used to justify a sustained campaign of aggression against the Venezuelan people, violating all norms of international law, constituting a case of collective punishment.
With this unnecessary, absurd, and hostile action, it is demonstrated that the declining leadership of the United States is not capable of designing a coherent foreign policy that is not based on coercion, blackmail, or disrespect.
Having had the opportunity to correct past mistakes and injustices that have even affected its own interests, the White House chooses to continue applying its economic terrorism through its more than 930 measures against our country.
The United States is now a hostage to its own policies of aggression. The migratory crisis, which so many political operators express concern about, is nothing but a direct and immediate consequence of its coercive measures and blockades.
On the other hand, one cannot expect anything else from a government that normalizes and trivializes genocide against the Palestinian people or that shows indifference to the progressive loss of civil rights of its minorities.
The Venezuelan people have not bowed to these aggressions nor will they ever. Their morale, conscience, and constancy are the solid foundation upon which they continue to build victories. No matter what the United States does, Venezuela is a country determined to be free and will prevail."