US slaps sanctions on dictator Maduro
EU criticises arrest of two opposition leaders
The United States hit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with direct sanctions on Monday over a disputed and deadly weekend vote, calling him a "dictator," while the leader refused to heed what he slammed as "imperial orders."
The measures were unusual in that they targeted a sitting head of state, but their reach was mostly symbolic, freezing any US assets Maduro might have and banning people under US jurisdiction from dealing with him.
"Yesterday's illegitimate elections confirm that Maduro is a dictator who disregards the will of the Venezuelan people," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters.
Maduro lashed out at the move, saying it smacked of American imperialism. "I will not obey imperial orders," he said.
"I am so proud, Mr Donald Trump," Maduro joked in English, before switching to slang in Spanish: "Go for it, already. I am being targeted with sanctions because I do not obey the orders of foreign governments."
Meanwhile, the European Union, US criticised the arrest of two Venezuelan opposition leaders yesterday following a controversial vote on a new assembly, saying it was a "step in the wrong direction".
Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma, the South American nation's highest profile leaders of the opposition to President Nicolas Maduro, were both already under house arrest when they were picked up by the Venezuelan intelligence service.
"A few weeks ago we had welcomed the transfer of Leopoldo Lopez from his prison into house arrest," Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, told a daily briefing when asked about the detention of the two men.
The senior US diplomat for the Americas, Acting Assistant Secretary Antonio Francisco Palmieri, tweeted that this was "another step in the wrong direction for Venezuela."
The EU urged the government in Caracas to end a four-month crackdown on protests that has left more than 120 people dead.