President Barack Obama signed an executive order declaring a national emergency with respect to Venezuela and imposing sanctions on seven officials there in response to the country's deteriorating human rights climate, the White House said Monday. The decision to impose the executive order was a response to "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by" the South American country, the White House said in a statement. Venezuela's economy is in shambles and the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, has sparked protests for locking up opposition leaders. Maduro also recently drew U.S. ire for saying his government had captured Americans involved in espionage activities, and that U.S. citizens in the future will have to seek visas to come to the nation.
