Alwaght- The Biden administration on Saturday eased some oil sanctions on Venezuela after the government of Nicolas Maduro and the opposition signed a broad ‘social accord’ to create a UN-administered fund to provide humanitarian aid to the Venezuelan people.
The agreement signed in Mexico City marked the resumption of long-stalled negotiations meant to find a common path out of the South American country’s complex crisis.
According to the Treasury’s statement on Saturday, Chevron Corporation was authorized to “resume limited natural resource extraction operations,” as long as Venezuela’s government does not receive “any profits from the oil sales by Chevron.” Under the policy, the extracted oil can only be exported to the US and the profits are supposed to be directed only to repaying the debts owed to Chevron, which have joint ventures with Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
Other sanctions are to be kept intact, according to a statement.
“Other Venezuela-related sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States remain in place,” the statement added, emphasizing that the move does not indicate any change to the longstanding US policy towards Venezuela. Washington will continue to “vigorously enforce these sanctions,” it said, and will only “provide targeted sanctions relief based on concrete steps that alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people and support the restoration of democracy.”
The US imposed sanctions on the South American nation after a Western-sponsored push, led by opposition leader Juan Guaido, sought to remove Presided Nicholas Maduro from his post in 2019.
The US went to great lengths to topple the current government but failed. Instead, it cracked down economically on the oil-rich country to bring it to its knees, but again failed.
Washington resumed contacts with Caracas government earlier this year when Ukraine war began and sanctions on Russia took the Russian energy off Western markets.
The Venezuelan government said that it was ready to return to the oil markets as the energy crunch continued.
The US Treasury Department tied its latest move to the resumption of the long-stalled negotiations between Maduro’s government and a wider coalition of opposition groups, besides the faction led by Guaido, whose term expires in January. But the main reason is the energy crisis caused by Ukraine war and its consequences for the Western economies.
