U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida who last year prodded the White House to take strong action against Venezuelan officials for human rights abuses, will convene a hearing next week on unrest in the South American nation and the U.S. response to it.
Earlier this week, the White House issued an executive order that slapped sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials, including the heads of military intelligence and the police, and said the situation in the country posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Rubio said the White House’s action was a good first step but that more could be done.
Rubio co-sponsored legislation last year that directed the White House to take the kind of action it did on Monday. Florida’s other senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, also co-sponsored the legislation.
As chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio will hold the hearing on Tuesday on the “deepening political and economic crisis in Venezuela." Scheduled witnesses include those from the State Department and the Treasury Department.
Said Rubio in a statement announcing the hearing: “The human rights and economic crisis in Venezuela is only going to get worse and will have major repercussions on America’s interests there and throughout the entire Western Hemisphere. While the financial sanctions on individual human rights violators that were announced earlier this week have put a spotlight on the disaster Nicolas Maduro and his regime have inflicted on the Venezuelan people, more must be done and more attention must be paid to this humanitarian and economic crisis that increasingly threatens regional security.”