The United States contends that it is the “single largest donor” of humanitarian assistance for Venezuelan nationals fleeing their home country, spending more than $11 million to support Trinidad and Tobago’s efforts in helping Venezuelan migrants.

In a statement on Sunday, the US Embassy noted that it has contributed more than $1.2 billion to the cause since 2017.

It listed the figure as it sought to rubbish claims that Venezuela’s existing turmoil is due to sanctions imposed by the United States government.

“The absence of a democratic system in Maduro’s Venezuela, ongoing systematic human rights violations, acute food shortages, precarious health systems, an electricity crisis, generalized violence, and economic collapse are some of the key causes that have forced more than 5 million Venezuelans to flee their country since 2015. Venezuela’s exodus under Maduro has become an unprecedented displacement crisis for the Western Hemisphere. Many continue to attempt to blame sanctions, but the Venezuelan economy was in free-fall long before the United States began to impose sanctions in August 2017,” the statement read. 

“The Venezuela sanctions program is designed to limit the Maduro regime’s sources of revenue and promote accountability for those who stand in the way of restoring democracy in Venezuela, while also ensuring the flow of humanitarian goods and services to the Venezuelan people. There are no sanctions or restrictions on the importation of food and medicines to Venezuela, while the Maduro regime uses its revenues to buy Russian weapons instead of food,” it continued. 

It recalled that in 2019 and 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued two reports highlighting the deplorable human rights situation in Venezuela.

“In October 2020, the independent Fact-Finding Mission of the OHCHR concluded that Venezuelan state actors have committed large-scale human-rights violations that include extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, some of which amount to crimes against humanity,” it lamented.