US talks to ease oil sanctions on Venezuela get blowback
The Biden administration's move to let Chevron negotiate its license with Venezuela's state oil company and drop sanctions on a former PDVSA official drew immediate criticism from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, who called it "a strategy destined to fail," according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. government moved to ease a small number of economic sanctions on Venezuela in a gesture meant to encourage resumed negotiations between the U.S.-backed opposition and the government of President Nicolas Maduro, according to Associated Press reporting by Regina Garcia Cano. The changes allow Chevron Corp. to negotiate the terms of its license with Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA, though Chevron is still not permitted to drill for or export any Venezuelan-origin petroleum, the AP reported.
The Treasury Department also removed Carlos Erik Malpica-Flores -- a former high-ranking PDVSA official and nephew of Venezuela's first lady -- from its sanctions list, according to the AP. Scores of other Venezuelan officials and more than 140 entities, including the country's central bank and PDVSA itself, remain sanctioned, and the Treasury continues to prohibit transactions with the Venezuelan government.
A senior U.S. government official told reporters the changes were requested by the opposition Unitary Platform as a condition for returning to the negotiating table, saying, according to the AP: "These are things that... the Unitary Platform negotiated and came to us to request that we do in order for them to be able to return to the negotiating table."
Menendez calls it "a strategy destined to fail"
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., criticized the move, calling the removal of Malpica-Flores from the sanctions list "obviously a gift to Maduro." Menendez said giving "a handful of undeserved handouts" to secure a promise of renewed talks "is a strategy destined to fail," according to reporting carried by PBS NewsHour.
What remains unresolved
The retrieved reporting does not establish what, if any, reciprocal steps Maduro's government agreed to take in exchange for the eased sanctions, nor whether the opposition's Unitary Platform publicly confirmed the U.S. official's account that it had requested the changes. Whether or when broader sanctions relief -- including full authorization for Chevron to resume drilling and exports -- might follow was also not addressed in the sourced coverage.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by the Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour). It restores a story originally published on this site in May 2022; figures are as reported at the time.