**DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in April of 2021**
We all know how ridiculously disastrous Donald Trump’s entire four years in office was. And according to a report from The Guardian, the man quite literally couldn’t even get his last day as president right.
Now, Donald could have easily just spent his final day in the White House packing up his things and saying his goodbyes. Hell, he didn’t even have a Twitter account to complain on at that point. You would think after all that humiliation and the God-awful mess at the Capitol building that he ignited he would just be quiet. But we all know that’s just now how Donald Trump rolls. Instead, he decided to impose some sanctions on a Venezuelan oil exporter. Except, he apparently can’t even do that right, and accidentally blacklisted the owner of an Italian restaurant.
Alessandro Bazzoni, the owner of a restaurant and pizzeria in the northern Italian city of Verona, says the last couple of months have been a “nightmare” after the Trump administration accidentally blacklisted him in the final days of Donald’s presidency.
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In addition to the restaurant owner, the United States Treasury also mistakenly blacklisted the graphic design company SeriGraphicLab, owned by a man whose name is also Alessandro Bazzoni, in Sardinia. He confirmed that his company was a victim of the wrongful sanctions, but declined to comment any further with the publication.
The report from The Guardian reads:
In 2019, Trump’s government imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in an attempt to force the resignation of president Nicolás Maduro, who the US accused of corruption, human rights violations and rigging his 2018 re-election. On his last day in office, Trump sanctioned a network of oil firms and individuals tied to PDVSA.
Bazzoni, the restaurant owner, discovered his company’s name – AMG SAS Di Alessandro Bazzoni & C – was on the blacklist during a visit to his bank on 19 January, the day before Trump left office and the new US president, Joe Biden, was sworn in.”
Bazzoni spoke with Corriere della Sera in the wake of the mistake and said, “When I heard that my current accounts had been blocked, I thought it was a joke. These are already difficult times for us restaurant owners, the last thing I needed was to have my accounts blocked.”
He went on to tell the newspaper that he was able to rectify the issue himself “by entering my data on a special digital platform of the US government.”
“While I was at it I managed to get a visa until 2023,” he added.
An updated list was posted to the US Treasury’s website on the 31st of March and the names of both Italian companies had been removed. Officials with the Treasury spoke with Reuters and said the department realized that the companies that were blacklisted were owned by different individuals with the Bazzoni name than the one they sanctioned back in January.
The restaurant owner says he never received an apology, “But it’s not a problem, the important thing is they removed my name from that list,” he told Corriere. “I thank the new American government for the efficiency with which it intervened.”
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
