US blocks Venezuelan purchase of food

The Guardian

"The war with the US has already begun and they are blocking our purchases of food", Venezuelan Minister Ramón Rodríguez Chacín told viewers on Venezuelan TV on March 12. His statement came at a time when the US is threatening to add Venezuela to its list of "terror-sponsoring" states and some Senators are calling for a full blockade of the country.

The Venezuelan minister, speaking on the program Counter Coup in Synthesis, accused the US of blocking purchases by the government, especially of food, from foreign sources. Venezuela´s economy is essentially oil-based. It imports around 70 percent of its food products. The blocking of food supplies is just one of the methods being used by the US in its attempts to undermine the popularity of the government and destabilise the internal situation there.

Rodríguez told viewers that for some time the US has exercised an informal blockade against Venezuela. The government has also had difficulty acquiring spares for military equipment and other items important to the national interest.

This, he added, was part of the war declared by Washington on the Bolivarian Revolution and it combines with the paramilitary offensive in Venezuela and the actions of the Opposition.......