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The Biden administration is ramping up pressure on President Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship in Nicaragua, barring Americans from doing business in the country’s gold industry and depriving 500 government insiders of U.S. visas, U.S. officials said.
The actions are the latest attempt by the United States to hold the former Sandinista leader accountable for his continued attacks on human rights and democracy in the Central American country and his continued security cooperation with Russia.
Previous rounds of sanctions have focused on Mr Ortega, his wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo, as well as members of their family and inner circle.
A new executive order to be signed by President Joe Biden would significantly expand a Trump-era decree that declared Mr. Ortega hijacking democratic norms, undermining the rule of law and using political violence against opponents, according to U.S. officials. Threats to U.S. national security.
Along with sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department, the order makes it illegal for Americans to do business with Nicaragua’s gold industry.
U.S. officials said it was the first time the U.S. had designated specific sectors of the economy as off-limits, which could be expanded in the future to include other industries believed to have funded Mr Ortega’s rule.
The executive order also paves the way for U.S. restrictions on investment and trade with Nicaragua — a move reminiscent of the punitive embargo the U.S. imposed in the 1980s during Mr. Ortega’s first post-civil war presidency.
Targeting the gold industry by a Biden administration could erode one of the Ortega administration’s biggest revenue generators. Gold is the country’s biggest export in 2020, and the country is already the largest producer of the precious metal in Central America and hopes to double output in the next five years.
As part of Monday’s action, the State Department will also cancel the U.S. visas of more than 500 Nicaraguan individuals and their families who either work for Ortega’s government or help create, implement and benefit from policies that undermine the country’s democracy, U.S. officials said .
Previously, it froze U.S. assets of the defense secretary and other members of the security forces linked to the closure of more than 1,000 NGOs.
Previously, the Biden administration also sanctioned the state-owned mining company. It also redistributed the country’s sugar quota, depriving the United States of valuable subsidies worth millions of dollars a year.
Nicaraguans began fleeing their country in 2018, initially to neighboring Costa Rica, after Mr. Ortega violently cracked down on mass street protests.
Then in 2021, security forces began rounding up key opposition leaders, including seven potential challengers to Mr Ortega ahead of that year’s presidential election. Without a meaningful challenger, Mr. Ortega served his fourth consecutive five-year term.
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