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The U.S. move is the latest taken under Executive Order 13884, signed by President Donald Trump in August, authorizing a block on property and interests of the Venezuelan government.

Under the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, U.S. citizens are prohibited from using assets that have been blocked or sanctioned.

“This action furthers U.S. efforts to use targeted sanctions and steady diplomacy to end Maduro’s attempts to usurp power, and to support a Venezuelan transition to democracy, including free and fair presidential elections,” wrote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement.

The new development adds to what has become a nearly two-decade saga of crumbling relations between Washington and Caracas.

Tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. can be traced back to when Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, became president of Venezuela in 1999. During his campaign for president, Chavez vilified the U.S. and other countries he felt were taking advantage of Venezuela.

Chavez also accused the U.S. of aiding in an attempted coup against his government in 2002. While the Bush administration tried to distance itself from the coup attempt, documents found in 2004 showed the CIA knew of an attempted coup back then.

Read more: Tensions between Venezuela and the US keep rising. Here’s how they got to this point

The U.S. condemned Venezuela for imprisoning political opponents as well as the Chavez regime’s consolidation of power. Chavez seized control of the country’s supreme court in 2004. He also increased his control over the local media, passing laws that penalized outlets for running content that “offends” public officials.

Once Chavez died in 2013 and Maduro took over, tensions began to increase once again. Maduro, who is not the charismatic leader Chavez was, consolidated his power in 2017 by stripping the country’s opposition-led legislature of power. By then, a massive humanitarian and economic crisis had already begun.