U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is speaking directly to the Venezuelan people on the heels of sanctions against the country’s president Nicolas Maduro.
The Caracas based 24 hour news network Globovision carried Senator Marco Rubio’s address Monday night.
“No hay bloqueo económico de Estados Unidos contra Venezuela,” Rubio says, speaking directly to the camera. “Sin embargo, la economía de una nación rica está en ruinas, porque el gobierno de Maduro ha regalado su petróleo y gran parte de su soberanía a Cuba.”
In English, his statement reads, “There is no U.S. economic blockade on Venezuela. Yet the economy of a rich nation is in shambles, because the Maduro government has given away your oil and much of your sovereignty to Cuba.”
In the ten minute statement Rubio tells Venezuelans countries throughout the region are rejecting the results of a recent vote for a constituent assembly to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. The Treasury Department approved sanctions Monday freezing President Maduro’s assets in the US and forbidding Americans from doing business with him.