Dear John,

Does this sound familiar? The U.S. funds and trains opposition to a socialist government. Members of the opposition engage in a violent attempted coup, which the U.S. frames as a democracy movement. Then the U.S. increases the pressure by imposing devastating sanctions. They did it to Venezuela, now they’re doing it to Nicaragua. The good news is we have a chance to pump the brakes on this plan by stopping a bill in the House.

The RENACER Act is a proposed law that lays down a blueprint for regime change in Nicaragua by making the economy scream. It has already passed the Senate and will soon be up for a vote in the House. If passed, it would give future administrations the legal framework for imposing broad sectoral sanctions and the justification for more coup attempts.

Tell your Representative to stop the RENACER Act!

The RENACER Act would order President Biden to review Nicaragua’s participation in CAFTA-DR, a free trade agreement signed with the U.S. in 2004. It would also impose restrictions on Nicaragua’s ability to get loans from financial institutions like the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and others. A similar bill about Venezuela passed in 2014 enabled the Obama and Trump administrations to target Venezuela. We can’t let the same thing happen to Nicaragua.

The situation in Nicaragua is complex, and even among progressives, there are many different opinions about the Ortega government. But there is no doubt that the U.S. has been heavily involved in efforts to destabilize the country. In 2020, it was revealed that USAID was working on a plan for a “transition” that would privatize the economy, target former government officials and “reestablish” military and police forces. Since 2015, USAID has spent over $160 million supporting Nicaraguan NGOs. That’s an enormous amount of money to spend on a small country! 

Tell Congress that sanctions will harm the Nicaraguan people!

It’s clear that the U.S. government doesn’t have an interest in helping the Nicaraguan people. The country was blocked for months from receiving COVID relief funds, received only a tiny amount of U.S. help in the aftermath of hurricanes Eta and Iota, and is not on the list of countries set to receive vaccines from the U.S. Now there are new deadly sanctions potentially on the way and we have to do what we can to stop them.

In radical solidarity,
Leonardo, Medea, Teri and Michelle

P.S. 

Learn more about these issues by joining our actionar on Wednesday, September 1 at 8pm ET / 5 pm PT.  Vijay Prashad of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Alex Main of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Jill Clark-Gollub of Friends of Latin America will engage in a timely discussion of this proposed law and U.S. attempts at regime change. After the discussion, participants will contact their Representative and urge them to vote no on the RENACER Act. Click here to RSVP!