The Biden administration is in talks with the Venezuelan government, and if an agreement can be reached, the U.S. would ease Trump-era sanctions on the condition the socialist country hold freer elections next year, The Washington Post reports.
Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, told Just The News that it's ironic that these actions are taken in the name of combating climate change, but Venezuelan oil and gas operations are some of the most polluting in the world.
Daniel Turner, executive director of Power The Future, said in a statement that the news of the deal between Venezuela and the U.S. comes less than three weeks after Biden's Interior announced it would hold the fewest offshore oil and gas lease sales in the history of the United States.
"The pathetic pattern of Joe Biden's energy policy continues: attack American energy production while begging foreign powers to produce more oil," Turner said.
"Joe Biden has never met a foreign barrel of oil he doesn't like. By now, it should be abundantly clear that Joe Biden will always prefer Tehran over Texas and Caracas over Carlsbad." According to the Post, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's 2018 election victory has been widely viewed as fraudulent.
The report quoted a U.S. official stating that neither the Biden administration or the Venezuelan government have committed to anything so far, but the Norwegian Embassy in Mexico confirmed the negotiation meetings in a post on X Monday.
After the sanctions were enacted, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, crude oil imports from Venezuela dropped from 634,000 barrels per day in January 2019 to 11,000 barrels per day by May. By June, no crude oil was being imported from Venezuela.
No comments:
Post a Comment