Venezuelan Leader Seeks More Powers amid U.S. Tensions

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was set Tuesday to request special legislative powers to confront what he termed "imperialist aggressions" from the United States, as relations between the countries deteriorated further.

Maduro will submit his request to the National Assembly, dominated by his ruling socialist party, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama ordered new sanctions against senior Venezuelan officials over an opposition crackdown.

The Venezuelan leader said on national television late Monday that he would ask for an "anti-imperialist law to prepare ourselves for all scenarios and win through peace."

Shortly after the U.S. sanctions were announced, Maduro recalled his envoy to Washington and denounced the U.S. action as "the most aggressive, unjust and harmful blow against Venezuela."

In activating the sanctions, Obama called the situation in oil-rich Venezuela "an extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States.

Maduro has accused Washington of backing an opposition plot to overthrow him in a coup that would have involved bombing the presidential palace. The U.S. government has dismissed the charges as baseless.

The leftist leader's popularity has sunk in the past year amid an economic crisis, galloping inflation and huge lines outside supermarkets plagued by drastic food shortages.

Maduro, who was elected to succeed his late mentor Hugo Chavez in April 2013, had obtained one-year-long powers to impose economic laws by decree later that same year.

Communist Cuba rallied behind Maduro on Tuesday, pledging "unconditional support" to Caracas. Another ally, Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa, denounced the U.S. sanctions as "grotesque" and a "sick joke."