Obama Declares Venezuela a National Security Threat, Sets Sanctions

U.S. President Barack Obama warned Monday that the country of Venezuela poses a national security threat to the U.S. while setting sanctions on seven officials from the Latin American country.

White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said in a statement Monday that the country had been deemed a U.S. national security risk due to some of its officials and their undermining of the democratic process. The Obama administration also accused the country of abusing human rights, calling on Venezuelan officials to release all political prisoners.

"Venezuelan officials past and present who violate the human rights of Venezuelan citizens and engage in acts of public corruption will not be welcome here, and we now have the tools to block their assets and their use of U.S. financial systems," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

"We are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents. Venezuela's problems cannot be solved by criminalizing dissent," he added.

"We've seen many times that the Venezuelan government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela," Earnest continued. "These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan government to deal with the grave situation it faces."

As Reuters reports, the U.S. has previously declared a country a threat to national security before imposing sanctions, as the U.S. has done before with Iran and Syria.

The seven officials named as sanctioned by the U.S. will have their property and assets blocked in the U.S. and will not be able to enter the country.

Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez released a statement saying the country will respond to the allegations soon, but in the meantime would be removing its top U.S. diplomat.

"We will soon make public Venezuela's response to these declarations," Rodriguez told reporters on Monday.