(UnitedVoice.com) – On Tuesday, March 8, President Joe Biden, with wide bipartisan support, banned Russian oil imports. The country provides roughly 8% of America’s oil resources which means the US will feel the impact of the ban at the pumps, even though American companies are increasing their own ouput. The decision comes amid reports that the administration has approached an old foe to help blunt the impact.
On Saturday, a group of US diplomats traveled to Venezuela to meet with President Nicolás Maduro’s government about the possibility of rolling back sanctions on the country’s oil exports. In 2019, former President Donald Trump issued oil sanctions after declaring Juan Guaidó the true leader of the Latin American country. Maduro was also accused of committing human rights violations.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) slammed the Biden administration for even considering a deal with Maduro. In a press release, Menendez said such a deal would “breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder.”
The democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people, like the resolve & courage of the people of Ukraine, are worth much more than a few barrels of oil. My statement on the Admin's reported talks with VZ breathing new life into Maduro's reign of torture: https://t.co/3U4x6nGsLP
— Senate Foreign Relations Committee (@SFRCdems) March 8, 2022
On Tuesday, Maduro released two American prisoners as an alleged show of good faith. However, the Biden administration claimed the release had nothing to do with an oil deal.
Maduro seems an odd choice for the Biden administration, after all, he supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The authoritarian has even repeated the claims of nazism against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Jewish man who lost family in the Holocaust. Making a deal with Maduro would essentially legitimize him after years of policy refusing to do exactly that.
Do you support the Biden administration possibly making an oil deal with the illegitimate, authoritarian regime?
Copyright 2022, UnitedVoice.com
