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ABOUTOver the Thanksgiving holiday, the Biden administration announced the easing of sanctions against Venezuela. With the midterm elections safely behind President Joe Biden, the administration probably hoped that Americans would be too busy finishing their turkey dinner to notice the administration’s latest turkey — a gift to Venezuela.
The Ministry of Finance has issued limited sanctions on oil production in Venezuela, following talks in Mexico City between sectors of the Venezuelan opposition coalition, the Unitary Platform, and the South American nation’s illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro.
The easing of sanctions on Venezuela confuses foreign policy. The US does not recognize Maduro as a constitutionally elected president. According to a UN report for this year, the regime is responsible for crimes against humanity, detaining and torturing at least 245 current political prisoners. Mode active
kidnaps
American citizens collude with China and Iran to avoid sanctions and harbor terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, and use their oil wealth to support and expand anti-American political projects in neighboring states.
It once again reveals the incoherent inconsistencies of the Biden administration regarding energy policy. Among them:
- It tacitly compromises with the Maduro regime on oil production (even though it benefits directly from the state-owned oil industry), while condemning Russia’s use of weapons in energy supplies and seeking to minimize Russia’s ability to profit from energy production.
- Turning a blind eye to greenhouse gas emissions from Venezuelan oil production while banning federal financial and technical assistance for similar projects in other countries—based on greenhouse gas emissions. The Wall Street Journal reminded readers of last year’s cold shoulder by the Biden administration when pro-American, oil-rich Guyana sought help to develop its resources while China filled the American void.
- Facilitating transactions for oil production in Venezuela, while aggressively pushing regulations across the US financial sector to keep private capital away from the oil sector.
- Prioritizing oil imports over new production of abundant domestic oil resources. Oil from Venezuela will certainly not strengthen US energy security in the long term, because Maduro is no friend of the US
Regardless of the mixed messages, the administration still moved to ease sanctions. This includes two licenses from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control that were awarded to Chevron. They allow Chevron and its subsidiaries to complete financial transactions necessary for oil production, including state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA. Another license allows transactions between the regime and four other US firms.
On Tuesday, Venezuela’s top Chevron executive met with Oil Minister Tarek El Aissami, a regime strongman closely tied to Iran, to announce new joint ventures and renewed oil production.
Venezuelan law limits production to state-owned or joint ventures, meaning newly thawed US capital to restore production will have to flow to the regime-controlled state oil giant, even if the license allegedly prohibits certain payments to the Venezuelan state. Maduro and his cronies embezzled about $2 billion from Petroleos de Venezuela in the last decade.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is facilitating an additional deal between Maduro’s regime, the opposition sector, and the UN to unfreeze $3 billion in foreign bank accounts, but could be managed by the regime itself, according to his representative in Mexico City. .
While the administration tries to justify these moves with the excuse of “concrete steps” toward democracy in Venezuela, the Maduro regime is constantly using opposition negotiations to buy itself time and concessions, and Biden knows it.
In addition, the licenses prohibit the sale and export of oil to any country other than the US and also prohibit any expansion by Chevron into new ventures. This gives the impression that the sanctions were lifted because the Biden administration needs Venezuelan oil.
What the administration needs is more American oil. But from proposing to block new offshore oil sales for the next five years to politicizing permits for new pipelines that allow for more production to regulating the internal combustion engine that won’t exist in 10 years, the Biden administration is wrongly seeking to prevent new oil infrastructure and investment. which would “lock in” future domestic production and thwart the president’s green agenda.
This is the kind of thinking that led Europe into an energy crisis. Thinking it could subsidize and mandate a switch to renewables, shut down its own oil (and coal, natural gas and nuclear) production and import the rest in the meantime, Europe has only achieved a very expensive, import-reliant energy sector. Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine served to expose the folly of Europe.
Biden’s energy policy—that is, the myopic fixation on greenhouse gas mitigation as an “organizing principle” of policy—is not working. It has forced the president to make concessions that frustrate the cause of freedom and enrich America’s enemies by importing resources that the US and its allies have in abundance.
Instead, Biden is subsidizing the Maduro regime by allowing its domestic resources to be diverted to other nefarious purposes.
The world needs more energy, but not from those who would arm it to make America and its neighbors less safe and free. The Biden administration’s decision to ease sanctions on the illegitimate Maduro regime discredits and weakens American Americans — and the people seeking freedom in Venezuela — who deserve better.
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This article originally appeared in Daily signal and is reprinted with kind permission of the Heritage Foundation.
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