What the Executive Order Says
Executive Order (EO) 13808 is entitled "Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to the Situation in Venezuela" and was issued on August 24th, 2017. It provides some additional sanctions on individuals within as well as the entirety of the government of Venezuela and has 7 sections. It builds on EO 13692, issued March 8th, 2015 and entitled "Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela."Preamble
The preamble discusses the motivation for this EO as well as mentioning the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act as the basis for the actions detailed in the EO. There has been a lot of description and analysis in major media outlets about what has happened and the problems faced by the Venezuelan people. This EO is one of the clear actions that the administration (and for that matter, I think the US Government) has taken to try to influence future events in Venezuela.Section 1
This section aims to cut off any US long term investments to the Government of Venezuela or the Nationally owned oil company PdVSA. Note here that if you are a US manufacturer and sell products or services to PdVSA or the Venezuelan government, you are ok, provided the terms of payment are no longer the net 90 days. Of course, you really do want to get your money up front if you do business there.Section 2
This section, to me, is redundant. I guess maybe it has to be spelled out for some people, but intentionally trying to bypass a prohibition is always illegal as far as I know whether or not it is spelled out specifically. Here, I think that the point is using off-shore (non-US) banks as a conduit is one of the things they want people not to do.Section 3
This section includes definitions for "person", "entity", "United States person" (which includes "any person in the United States") and "Government of Venezuela".Section 4
This section directs the Secretary of the Treasury to implement this EO including promulgating rules in order to effectively implement it.Section 5
This section, as with the preamble, provide the reasoning for issuing this EO.Section 6
This section is legal fine print, often seen in other EO's.Section 7
This section defines the exact time of effectiveness.My commentary
So usually sanctions are taken by Congress. It is not clear what is going on with the politics such that the President is issuing sanctions via Executive Order and it is not Congress passing measures to act against Venezuela. Since, as is stated, financial transactions can be made so quickly around the world, going through the rule making process would allow anyone who wanted to do any of these prohibited activities the time to make all and any arrangements so as to nullify the effect of sanctions.Overall, I think this EO shows signs of being hastily written as there could be some polish to the language and organization of the sections of the EO. I agree that what is going on in Venezuela is terrible and that the government is corrupt. I am glad that the tweet of military action was just apparently venting. But even this situation and the US response to it drags into the discussion the questions of whether nation-building (of other nations) is part of the "mission" of the USA. If there was a good track record (like the period after WWII), the benefits would be obvious and more support from the general populace. However, recent attempts have significantly failed and so a great reluctance is created. I think that the US does need to work at nation-building and spreading liberal, scientifically based democratic institutions around the work. But we seem to have poor tools and overly grand ambitions. That is not a problem I am smart enough to solve, but somehow as a nation it does have to be solved.
