On March 7, 2019, the Federal Register published Presidential Notice of March 5, 2019 Continuation of the National Emergency With Respect to Venezuela, which extends for an additional year the national emergency first declared by Executive Order (EO) 13692 (March 8, 2015) based on the Government of Venezuela’s erosion of human rights guarantees; persecution of political opponents; curtailment of press freedoms; use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests; and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant government corruption. Additional steps were taken in EO 13808 (August 24, 2017), EO 13827 (March 19, 2018), EO 13835 (May 21, 2018), EO 13850 (November 1, 2018), and EO 13857 (January 25, 2019). The national emergency is being extended because the circumstances described in EO 13692, and subsequent EOs issued with respect to Venezuela, have not improved and they continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.
