The Administration has done nothing to dampen speculation that those actions could include an embargo on oil imports from Venezuela, America's third-largest foreign supplier. An embargo could increase energy prices in this country and affect supply and distribution through Citgo, Venezuela's US refining subsidiary.
"Sectoral sanctions," as they are called, "are something that are certainly under consideration," said one of several senior Administration officials who briefed reporters.
"All options are still on the table for the president to take after July 30," the official said. "Certainly our hope is that Maduro will change his position."
Response options will go to Trump for a decision, the official said, and the Government was doing a "fully thorough analysis to try to understand the impact of options not just on Venezuela but also on the US . . . The goal is to try to prevent as much harm to the US economy, while maximising [impact] on the Venezuelan regime."
Maduro responded in an interview with the Russian outlet RT, saying he was in the midst of striking "important" new oil and gas deals with Moscow and calling on Trump to stop his "aggression".
"For what it's worth, I'd like, as president, to some day speak with [Trump], shake hands and tell him that we're in the 21st century, and to forget the Monroe doctrine," Maduro said. "That it's time to accept diversity, and of a new time of quality relationship"
As the crisis has continued, the US Congress and other nations in the hemisphere have been widely supportive of action against the Maduro government.
Venezuela counts on US oil sales as a major source for dwindling supplies of hard currency and uses the dollars it earns to cover food and medicine imports. Cutting off those supplies should significantly ratchet up the pressure on Maduro but exacerbate already bad shortages of food and medicines for long-suffering Venezuelans.
The list contained powerful figures in Venezuela's ruling elite, including Elías José Jaua Milano, Maduro's minister spearheading the vote, and Tibisay Lucena Ramirez, head of the electoral council that opponents have charged with fraud. But just as significant was the decision to extend the sanctions to the military and state-run oil sector, a move potentially signalling to powerful forces in the country that they would not be immune from the response against Maduro.
Those officials included the recently named army commander Jesús Rafael Suárez Chourio and Sergio José Rivero Marcano, whose National Guard has been battling protesters. Another key name: Simón Alejandro Zerpa Delgado, a senior executive at the state-owned oil giant.
But few thought the US step would prevent the vote.
"Do I think that it's going to work? I honestly don't think these kinds of sanctions usually work," said Michael Pinfold, a global fellow with the Wilson Center's Latin America programme.
As pressure on Maduro continued to build, anti-government forces were staging a 48-hour strike that shut down large parts of the capital today, with a massive march on Caracas being organised for Saturday or Sunday.
In the wealthier eastern half of the city, most businesses closed to support the strike called by the opposition, which is boycotting the vote and calling for its cancellation.
The main highways of the capital city were largely closed down in the early morning, and reports surfaced of national police lobbing tear gas at strikers in the centre. In the poorer neighbourhoods in the west, the strike appeared less pronounced, with more businesses open and more people on the streets.
