Published On 20 Dec 202520 Dec 2025Click here to share on social mediashare2ShareThe United States Department of the Treasury has announced new sanctions on several family members and associates of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as the Trump administration increases pressure on Caracas and continues to build up US forces on Venezuela’s borders.The sanctions announced on Friday come as the US military continues attacks on boats off the country’s coast, which have killed more than 100 people. The US military has also seized a Venezuelan oil tanker and imposed a naval blockade on all vessels arriving and departing from Venezuelan ports that are under US sanctions.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listAnnouncing the new sanctions, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement that “Maduro and his criminal accomplices threaten our hemisphere’s peace and stability”.“The Trump Administration will continue targeting the networks that prop up his illegitimate dictatorship,” Bessent added.The new sanctions target seven people who are family members or associates of Malpica Flores, a nephew of Maduro, and Panamanian businessman Ramon Carretero, who were named in an earlier round of US sanctions that also targeted six Venezuela-flagged oil tankers and shipping firms, on December 11.Flores, who is one of three of Maduro’s nephews by marriage, dubbed “narco-nephews” by the US Treasury Department, is wanted because he “has been repeatedly linked to corruption at Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA”, the Treasury said in a statement.It was not immediately clear how Flores’s role in Venezuela’s state-run oil company related to “propping up Nicolas Maduro’s rogue narco-state”, which Bessent said in his statement was the reason for widening sanctions to additional family members and associates of the president. Advertisement The US has claimed that tackling drug trafficking is the primary reason for its military escalation in the region since September, including the strikes on vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean, which international law experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.Despite the Trump administration’s repeated references to drug trafficking, its actions and messaging appear increasingly focused on Venezuela’s oil reserves, which are the largest i …
