The U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, remarked that “we’ve seen recently the regime begin to build its relationship with Iran. Iran, Venezuela, a pair of pariah states. Iran and North Korea now – North Korea and Venezuela. And I think one of the other impacts besides the potential sanctions themselves is reminding countries around the world about the nature of this regime and the partners that it seeks around the world”. He further noted “the regime is working very actively with Iran both to improve the output at its refineries and simply to buy gasoline… they also import diesel”.