US President Barack Obama has extended by one year the “national emergency” action that results in sanctions against drug traffickers in Colombia. The extension was made known through a letter on Wednesday addressed to the United States Congress.
By signing the order, Obama extended a 1995 executive order, signed by former US President Bill Clinton, placing economic sanctions against Colombian drug-traffickers, barring them from purchasing US property and from participating in the country’s financial markets.
“The actions of significant narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and to cause an extreme level of violence, corruption, and harm in the United States and abroad,” said Obama in the letter to Congress. “For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency.”
The order will extend the emergency measures past October 21, 2014, as the president claims that the issues “have not been resolved.”
Sources
- Obama prolonga un año más las medidas contra narcotraficantes colombianos (El Tiempo)
- Message to the Congress — Colombia Traffickers (whitehouse.gov)
- Executive Order 12978—Blocking Assets and Prohibiting Transactions With Significant Narcotics Traffickers (U.S. Treasury – Federal Register)