The United States and Venezuela object to the World Trade Organization meeting to review sanctions under Trump

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Madrid, March 26th (Europe Press) –

The World Trade Organization (WTO) suspended the dispute settlement body meeting on Friday after the United States rejected Venezuela’s request for an investigation into former President Donald Trump’s administration sanctions against President Nicolas Maduro.

The United States made it clear that during the meeting, it exercised its rights as a member of the organization to object to this demand of the “illegal” committee, as it considers that “the representatives of the Maduro regime do not speak in the name of the Venezuelan people.”

In this sense, the North American country insisted that it “will reject any attempt by Maduro to misuse the World Trade Organization to attack US sanctions that seek to restore human rights and democracy in Venezuela.”

That way, the meeting ended early after Venezuela rejected a subsequent request from Washington that the WTO remove Venezuela’s request for the dispute from the meeting’s agenda, according to an official who had access to Bloomberg.

The mutual blockade between Venezuela and the United States means that the trade organization will not be able to hold regular meetings to settle disputes unless one of the two countries backs off course.

Between 2018 and 2019, the Donald Trump government created a series of regulations and executive orders to prevent Venezuela from accessing the financial markets of the United States. The measures affected any transaction related to the purchase of Venezuelan debt.

With regard to Venezuela, these measures have been taken to “isolate the country economically”, as stated in its complaint filed today, and it is understood that it violated its rights in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

The Trump administration had previously opposed Venezuela’s request for an investigation into the dispute at the World Trade Organization in 2019, which prevented members of the body from holding a dispute resolution meeting at the WTO, something that had not happened since 1999.

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