This tanker is supposed to be empty- Still, this is an act of piracy

The ministry said the vessel was in international waters and that Russia has since lost contact with it: “Today at about 3 p.m. Moscow time, in the open sea beyond the territorial waters of any state, U.S. naval forces boarded the vessel; contact with the ship was lost.”

“In accordance with the norms of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the high seas are governed by freedom of navigation, and no state has the right to use force against vessels properly registered under the jurisdiction of other states.”

You’ll notice in the next article the author mentions Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth’s favourite PIRATE- Oops, my bad, privateer. Which is just a fancier/obfuscation name for PIRATE and PIRACY, allowing the royalty some plausible deniability in their plundering activities–

Royals and other elites just had someone else do their dirty work (via approval or licensing) and share in their spoils. Pirates were free agents.

inews via archive.ph

In seizing the Russian tanker Marinera, formerly Bella 1, following hard upon the citizen’s arrest of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump was aping in the mid 21st century the habits of Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite privateer, Francis Drake.

The seizure of the empty, 22-year-old super tanker somewhere south of the Iceland Gap in the North Atlantic appears to have been accomplished bloodlessly. But it could have deadly consequences.

It was the third tanker to be grabbed by the US Coast Guard and Homeland authorities on the same pretext in as many months.

Immediately after news about Marinera broke, a fourth ship, the Sophia, was reported to have been arrested by US Coast Guards in the Caribbean. The ships were seized for breach of the embargo on Venezuela. They were part of the “ghost fleet” busting sanctions on Russia and Iran, as well as Venezuela.
Last month it was a ship called the Hyperion, and like Bella 1 she had been renamed and reassigned to the Russian flag. Ironically, the Bella 1/Marinera has the newly registered home port of Sochi, on the Black Sea, hard by Vladimir Putin’s favourite summer palace.

It all marks a dramatic handbrake turn in the tangled personal relations between the American and Russian presidents. With his latest move to enforce his version of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 – renamed the “Donroe Doctrine” – Trump is likely to have reassigned Putin from “frenemy” to outright enemy.

Trump and Putin were not friends- The so called peace negotiations were never legitimate.

The oil embargo strikes at three of Russia’s close clients, allies or proxies – Cuba, Iran, and China. Iran’s shadow fleet is under sanction. As with Maduro’s Venezuela, the principal client for oil from both countries has been China – and Beijing will hurt from Trump’s new oil strategic offensive. The last three registered ports for offloading for Bella 1/Marinera are in China.

Cuba, Russia’s main client and ally in the Caribbean next to Maduro’s Venezuela, is completely dependent on Venezuelan oil. It is now under a complete “soft blockade” from the US. Havana has lately been suffering up to 56 hours on end of sustained blackouts.

The focus for Russia is now to keep the Baltic ports open to oil shipments – especially Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Vysotsk and Kaliningrad. In its enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad – formerly Prussian Konigsberg – is especially vulnerable. A formidable naval base, it is now one of the short-odds bets for a clash between Russia and Nato.

Trump’s oil strategy appears to have brutal simplicity. He aims to dominate, and even control where possible, the hydrocarbon resources of the American continent – “Our Hemisphere” in the words of the US national security strategy released last year – plus the strategic minerals from copper to rare earths, lithium and the like. The claim runs from the Arctic to Antarctica.

This leads to America being the dominant hydrocarbon superpower – able to face down Opec, Russia and China, in energy commerce. This week Washington has declared the grabbing of 50 million barrels of oil “owed” to it from Venezuela.

The new face-off with Russia is the key to the latest Trump posture and rhetoric about Greenland. Not so much a deep mineral and hydrocarbon resource, it is needed for America’s defence, we now hear. Specifically, it is needed for American installations as part of the embryonic “Golden Dome” anti-missile defence – because a large part of the projected flight paths of Russia’s strategic missile force is over the Atlantic Arctic, mainly Greenland. It looks as if large parts of Greenland could become areas of sovereign base for the US forces by treaty.

The episode of the Bella 1/Marinera directly involves the UK alliance with the US. A US special force contingent has used bases in England – Thetford, Fairford and Mildenhall – and the standard SOFA – stationing of forces agreement. Supporting the chasing of sanctions-busters, the Royal Navy provided a tanker and the RAF a P8 surveillance plane.

Given the uncertainty of the crisis now emerging across the Nato security area, Keir Starmer is being urged to fulfill his airy promises about security of last year, and put real money into overdue defence reform and development.
The events across the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Baltic of the last days and hours, as well as the implosion of Iran, are parts of a rolling crisis, now changing by the hour.
Donald Trump, no doubt, is bathing in the spotlight as possibly the number one global player – for good or ill.

If you haven’t yet read this previous post? Might be a good time to do that!

Keeping in mind;

The Roman empire eventually collapsed due largely to over expansion/extension. History repeats.

I saw something about a smeltering facility the DoD (Department of War) purchased with JP Morgan– Financed by JPMorgan, Jointly Owned by US DoD

US Secures Silver Smelter Deal

The project, known as the “U.S. Smelter,” is expected to require approximately $6.6 billion in capital expenditures, with total investment reaching $7.4 billion including financing costs. It is being developed in coordination with the U.S. Department of War and the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to project materials and government statements.

Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg said the investment reflects a strategic shift in U.S. industrial and defense priorities.

“President Trump has directed his Administration to prioritize critical minerals as essential to America’s defense and economic security,” Feinberg said.

And here

US intervention and kidnapping of Venezuela’s leader has changed the rules of resource extraction.

Venezuela possesses extraordinary abundance beneath its soil. What today’s events have underscored is the absence of the above-ground architecture required to translate that abundance into bankable supply.

Give this a listen- it covers a lot!

I’m not alone in understanding the empire is collapsing and is dangerously desperate to cling to power- Venezuela made that point very clear.

By attacking Venezuela, seizing its president, and promising to “run” the country indefinitely—all without an congressional or United Nations authorization—U.S. President Donald Trump may well have shredded what little is left of international norms and opened the way to new acts of aggression from U.S. rivals China and Russia on the world stage, some experts say.

Definitely shredded what little was left of international norms- doubtful on China and Russia.

“Trump probably achieved little in the way of stopping narcotics flows into the United States” .. That’s wasn’t the goal anyway

“If the United States asserts the right to use military force to invade and capture foreign leaders it accuses of criminal conduct, what prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership?” Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement. “What stops [Russian President] Vladimir Putin from asserting similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president? Once this line is crossed, the rules that restrain global chaos begin to collapse, and authoritarian regimes will be the first to exploit it.”

Hello, the US exploited this first!!- And yes they are an authoritarian regime- Completely lost on Sen Mark Warner! Though he’s saying exactly that!

Trump made clear that his goal was regime change—and even long-term U.S. occupation. This in spite of the administration’s repeated denials that this was his goal; Trump ran for president in 2024 on a platform of avoiding such interventions.

“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition,” Trump said, and he did not deny suggestions from reporters that this could require years. In a haunting echo of similar claims made more than two decades ago before the U.S. invasion of another oil-rich nation, Iraq, Trump said that any U.S. costs would be reimbursed by “money coming out of the ground”—in other words, Venezuelan oil. “We’re going to be taking a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump added.

“We can’t take a chance that somebody else takes over Venezuela,” the U.S. president said. He said that U.S. oil companies would now be sent in to fix things and restore “American property”

Speaking to Fox News, Trump said that despite his good relations with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “She’s not running Mexico. The cartels are running Mexico,” adding that “something’s gonna have to be done with Mexico.”

Trump’s action “weakens the already compromised U.S. ability to credibly make arguments about rules concerning use of force in international politics—which is zero cost to this administration since it does not care about such things,” said William Wohlforth, an international relations expert at Dartmouth University.

“A lawless administration has reached a new low,” said Harold Koh, an expert in international law at Yale and former legal advisor to the State Department. “Trump has baldly violated the UN Charter, with no valid claim of self-defense, and engaged in an illegal extraterritorial arrest that will be vigorously contested in a U.S. court.”

In a statement, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the U.S. operation “contravenes the principle of non-use of force that underpins international law.”

Finish the article from Foreign Policy at the link provided- We’re moving on. At this point in time. Based on information read and digested I’m not taking away the idea any sort of deal was made. The US went in with overwhelming force including electronic warfare and they kidnapped the leader of another nation in a coup plot

Task & Purpose

The operation involved 150 aircraft from 20 different bases and ships, Caine said, including Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps fighter jets and bombers.

160th SOAR helicopters flew low over the Caribbean Sea until they reached land. Fighters and bombers provided air cover. The helicopters fired on Venezuelan ground defenses “with overwhelming force” when the U.S. forces came under fire during the raid. One helicopter was damaged but remained operational during the mission, Caine said. The special operations force was “over the water at 3:29 a.m. Eastern Standard Time,” Caine added, and Maduro was taken to the USS Iwo Jima.

Trump said that the city was largely blacked out ahead of the raid “due to a certain expertise that we have.” U.S. Cyber Command, with oversees the military’s cyberwarfare capabilities, also took part in the operation, Caine said.

They used their cyberwarfare capabilities to overwhelm Venezuelan defenses..IMO

From Brazil media;

Bombs away in Venezuela for Trump, the self-proclaimed ‘peace’ president

Trump’s enthusiasm for war would seem at odds for a president who has loudly declared that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

The US is absolutely lawless and out of control. Trump is exactly as expected. The US is acting out of a desperate need to hold onto global control. It won’t work- But it’s dangerous for us all.

Trump Says US Has Captured Maduro and Wife and have flown them out of the country

President Donald Trump announced early Saturday morning that the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, flying them out of the country after a “large scale strike.” This marks the administration’s most aggressive action in the region since taking office.

The shocking announcement follows months of airstrikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the region that have killed dozens, as the administration has denied that the real goal was a regime change to oust the authoritarian leader.

The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” the president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 4:21 a.m. Eastern time. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! ”

AG Bondi: Maduro, Wife Indicted in SDNY for Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy

Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced the indictment of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his wife on terrorism and weapons charges in the Southern District of New York.

“Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York,” Bondi wrote Saturday morning on X.

“Nicholas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts. On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers.“

There have been reports claiming Russia has supplied Venezuela with certain missiles and there are Russian personnel involved in training Venezuelans to use this equipment. Sort of like a replay of the Cuban missile crisis. Only then the US had a far smarter, less arrogant President.

A good place to start might be this pdf

Summarizing

The Primakov Doctrine and New Generation Warfare

The Primakov Doctrine shapes Russia’s approach to establishing a multipolar world and influences its actions in Venezuela.

The doctrine seeks to counter U.S. dominance and promote Russian interests globally.
It emphasizes the use of asymmetric warfare, combining military and non-military measures to achieve political objectives.
Russia’s military interventions in Syria and potential actions in Venezuela reflect this strategic framework.

Economic and Geopolitical Interests in Venezuela

Russia’s partnership with Venezuela is driven by overlapping economic and geopolitical interests, making it a critical ally.

Russia has invested approximately $20 billion in Venezuela’s oil sector through Rosneft.
Venezuela owes Russia $3.1 billion for arms sales.

Fortune.com

The U.S. seizure of a massive oil tanker offshore of Venezuela this week represented a brazen escalation of the Trump administration’s repeated military incursions in the area. It’s also a broader sign of the increasing involvement of the U.S. in South America’s petroleum politics.

The corporate role

In July, Trump granted Chevron a new, restricted license to produce oil in Venezuela. As the only U.S. oil producer in the country—Chevron has worked in Venezuela for a century—Chevron produces about 25% of Venezuela’s crude with state oil company PDVSA. However, Venezuela ships about 80% of its oil to China under deep discounts because of U.S. sanctions.

“Getting involved in regime change in Venezuela would probably be the most ambitious military mission he would be involved in, which is why I don’t think he’s going to overcommit,” Reed said of Trump. “I think what he wants to do is tighten the noose and make Maduro untenable—make sure everyone understands that maybe the U.S. and Venezuela can turn the page once he’s out of the picture.”

Does Trump want to commit or not? Because if he does “over commit”… he could definitely be biting off way more than he could chew.

The Spectator World via Archive.ph

This time around, the US campaign raises the same question. What is the goal?

“You can shoot all the little boats you want out of the water, and it’s not going to make any strategic difference,” says Farah. Washington has positioned itself between choices without fully committing to any of them. A full-scale intervention is unrealistic, limited strikes risk looking symbolic and financial pressure remains only partial. The result, Farah says, is ni quita ni limonada – neither fish nor fowl. “If strategy remains undefined and pressure fades away, then the regime wins. And that’s a bad option. Maduro will say he defeated the United States.”

That is precisely what Moscow hopes for. Russia cannot rescue Maduro militarily, but it may not have to. If the US campaign withers away without an outcome, the Kremlin can score a victory and claim, once again, that even a war-drained Russia can out wait American attention span.

All of this said, including in other reports. It seems to me controlling the oil resource is primary for the US. It’s practically all the Nobel Peace Prize, useful idiot, Marina Corrina Conchada speaks of. Not just for the simple reason of having primary or sole access but also for denying access to others. This could be far uglier then most might realize? Hard to say.

The Dispatch Via Archive.ph

David Smilde/September 4, 2025

The nation is not a major source of drugs to the U.S., for starters.

The U.S. has sent eight warships and one attack submarine to international waters off the coast of Venezuela, nominally to combat “cartels [that] have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere…[and] flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”

Part of this operation has been the designation of the “Cartel de los Soles” in July, as a specially designated terrorist group. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump celebrated the operation’s first result on Truth Social—a drone strike on a small wooden boat with outboard motors, that he claimed was being used to transport drugs to the U.S.

The entire naval operation raises a number of questions. First, Venezuela is not a leading source of the drugs reaching U.S. streets. The last estimates made by U.S. agencies suggest that between 10 and 13 percent of global cocaine supplies passes through Venezuela, and much of that goes to Europe.

Preferred route for cocaine is Columbia. And fentanyl is a bigger issue for the US.

Perhaps more important, there is no actual organization called Cartel of the Suns. The idea of such a cartel emerged 30 years ago as a sort of catchall term to refer to the very real involvement of military officers in drug trafficking. In Venezuela, military officers wear suns on their lapels rather than stars, hence the play on words. Insight Crime, an investigative journalism outlet that specializes in crime in the Americas, has said “the drug trafficking structures in the Venezuelan state are not a cartel, they are a series of often competing networks buried deep within the Chavista regime, with ties going back almost two decades.” Javier Mayorca, Venezuela’s most serious journalist writing about drug trafficking, has suggested the term Cartel of the Suns “has become something of an urban legend that has been growing in Venezuela and as time goes by, gets used to describe different actors.” 

So, the Cartel of the Suns is like a meme- a mind virus.

The existence of such a cartel gained more formal acceptance in 2020, when the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of a maximum pressure campaign, obtained an indictment naming Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as its leader. However, the actual text of the indictment includes no evidence or even concrete claims about a cartel. It accuses Maduro and others of facilitating or permitting various drug trafficking operations, including by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group. 

FARC is Columbian! And the US is very well aware of that fact! FARC started out as a rebel group- leftist in nature- The US armed certain factions in Columbia to kill FARC rebels. I’m not saying FARC is a bunch of good eggs. The article below lays out the background, minimally, but, it helps.

Here’s a link to a 2013 article documenting those early days

The covert program in Colombia provides two essential services to the nation’s battle against the FARC and a smaller insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN): Real-time intelligence that allows Colombian forces to hunt down individual FARC leaders and, beginning in 2006, one particularly effective tool with which to kill them.

In March 2008, according to nine U.S. and Colombian officials, the Colombian Air Force, with tacit U.S. approval, launched U.S.-made smart bombs across the border into Ecuador to kill a senior FARC leader, Raul Reyes. The indirect U.S. role in that attack has not been previously disclosed.

The covert action program in Colombia is one of a handful of enhanced intelligence initiatives that has escaped public notice since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most of these other programs, small but growing, are located in countries where violent drug cartels have caused instability.

Colombia and the FARC have been in peace negotiations in Havana for a year. They have agreed so far on frameworks for land reform, rural development and for allowing insurgents to participate in the political process once the war ends. The two sides are currently discussing a new approach to fighting drug trafficking.

Let’s get back to Venezuela

Invasion? Not likely.

In fact, there are not nearly enough U.S. troops on these ships for such an operation, and if there is one thing Donald Trump has been consistent about throughout his career, it is an aversion to extended military occupations.

Regime Change? That’s what I see at play. An attempt at regime change– And not for the first or second time either!

The pressure provided by the U.S. military build-up could conceivably cause a crack in the regime.

Problems with the presentation;

This entire discourse lacks substantial evidentiary support and has been contradicted by U.S. officials. But as false stories of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq made clear two decades ago, in the right context the tall tales told by displaced politicians seeking foreign intervention in their home countries can take on a life of their own. In this case, claims of Maduro using criminal groups to invade the U.S. have been repurposed by an administration that lives and breathes conspiracy theories, loves political theater, and is willing to use whatever means possible to deport undocumented immigrants. 

Is this a show of strength for the American populace concerning undocumented immigrants?

Which brings us to an additional motivation for this operation. In March, Trump deported approximately 250 Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador, without due process. He justified this action by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which permits the government to deport citizens of an enemy country during a time of war, without due process. Lower courts barred Trump from deporting detainees without the opportunity to defend themselves, a decision upheld in May by the Supreme Court.

However, the Supreme Court did not actually rule on the legality of the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, but rather on procedural issues. They sent the case back to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which decided on Tuesday, in a split decision, that the administration could not use the AEA because the presence of Tren de Aragua in the U.S. did not amount to a “predatory incursion.” The case will undoubtedly return to the Supreme Court. 

In this context, having warships off the coast of Venezuela, presumably to fight off Cartel de los Soles and its supposed operational arm, the Tren de Aragua, from “flooding the U.S. with drugs,” could pass muster for a “military conflict.”

How about all that oil?

The Trump administration is big on promotion, so, it could be part of the illegal migrant issue? However, I don’t so. Because they (US admin/state department) are pushing the bogus drug issue- akin to Iraq & the WMD’s, plus the US has made multiple attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan leadership- Starting with Hugo Chavez, through to Maduro. And Venezuela has a lot of oil!!

In remarks that he made while in Buenos Aires on Monday, one of the literal founders of BRICS shockingly declared that “In the same way that I am against territorial occupation, as Russia did to Ukraine, I am against too much interference in the Venezuelan process.”
Quite clearly, Lula was implying that Russia’s military efforts to restore the integrity of its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO crossed them there are morally equivalent to the US’ unprovoked Hybrid War aggression against Venezuela.

So, that’s an interesting statement from Lula. I went to the original source

https://veja.abril.com.br/mundo/defendendo-maduro-lula-compara-governo-guaido-a-invasao-russa-da-ucrania/

“Da mesma forma que eu sou contra a ocupação territorial, como a Rússia fez à Ucrânia, sou contra muita ingerência no processo da Venezuela”, disse.

Translated it myself via google’s tranlator

DID YOU NOTICE THIS? “I am against too much interference in the Venezuelan process”

Digression: Very obviously he is okay with some interference just not too much of it! So how much interference is acceptable to Lula? Who defines too much interference? Lula keeps looking worse and worse. Digression ended

He is very clearly stating opposition to Russia’s entry into Ukraine.

“In the same way that I am against territorial occupation, as Russia did to Ukraine”

Though Ukraine to Venezuela is apples and oranges.

Andrew Korbyko continues on

“Newly re-elected three-time Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s popularly known as Lula, just shattered the foreign policy expectations of his multipolar base by becoming the first BRICS leader to publicly condemn Russia’s special operation. Unlike his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro who refused to do so and thus received a lot of flak in the US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) for his pragmatism, Lula crossed the line and even compared Russia’s involvement in Ukraine to the US’ in Venezuela.”

What makes this all the more interesting is Venezula’s leader Maduro cancelled an upcoming meeting with Lula

Venezuela calls off Maduro meeting with Lula, Brazil govt says

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Venezuela has decided to call off a previously arranged meeting between President Nicolas Maduro and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Monday, Lula’s press office said.

The Brazilian government had announced earlier in the day the two leaders were set to meet in Buenos Aires this afternoon as they attend a summit of Latin American and Caribbean countries in Buenos Aires.

Later, however, Lula’s team released a new update of his agenda saying the meeting would no longer take place as Venezuela canceled it.

At my big tech censored blog, long time readers might recall my reporting on the fact that Venezuela and Turkey had very good relations. Turkey had helped Venezuela when they were being heavily, heavily abused/oppressed by the Americans.. Much to the ire of the US. Turkey has been resolving issues with Russia. Turkey has long been targeted by the US/NATO terror crew. As has Venezuela. Turkey has been forging it’s own path. As Venezuela has been trying to do for so long now.

Maduro cancelling the Lula meeting is really interesting. What might these actions suggest to us? I’d boldly state that Maduro smells a rat in Lula.

I’d picked up some curious Brazilian news earlier this year

When Biden sent a delegation to Caracas in early March, rumors began to circulate that the U.S. was considering reopening relations with Venezuela as oil prices soared. Now, after a period of silence from Washington on the subject, it appears that the U.S. is going to ease its sanctions on the Latin American oil giant. At the same time that the U.S. is lifting some sanctions, Venezuela is working with Iran to help revive its oil industry. It seems geopolitics has taken a back seat to the global energy crisis as oil prices soar. The U.S. imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela under the Trump administration in 2019 due to ongoing human rights violations by President Nicolás Maduro. Under President Biden, there were discussions about reopening some trade links by allowing crude-for-diesel exchanges on humanitarian grounds, although this never came to fruition. However, the U.S. oil and gas firm Chevron has been allowed to continue limited operations in Venezuela in order to help avoid the collapse of the country’s oil industry. There has been speculation in recent months around whether Biden would ease restrictions on Venezuela in response to global crude shortages and a severe rise in oil prices, with several commentators highlighting the dangers of such a move. 

The White House announced in May that it was reconsidering its restrictions on Venezuelan oil, entering discussions with Maduro. Biden will now allow Chevron Corp. to negotiate its oil license with state-owned oil producer Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), thereby reducing certain sanctions on the oil-rich state. Although no further oil drilling or additional revenues for the Maduro government will be permitted. The move follows a meeting between US officials and Maduro in March to discuss how to move forward. 

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez confirmed rumors about the shift in policy by tweeting “Venezuela aspires that these decisions of the United States of America pave the way for the absolute lifting of the illegal sanctions that affect all of our people.”

But the Republican opposition has been quick to criticize Biden’s actions. Senator John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, strongly opposes the easing of sanctions on Venezuela, stating “our experience buying Russian energy should have taught President [Joe] Biden that buying energy from tyrants is a dangerous proposition.”

The White House apparently responded to a request by Maduro’s political opposition to ease sanctions, although the opposition said that the request came from Maduro. The Biden Administration hopes that dangling oil industry allowances in front of the president may encourage him to make greater political concessions with the opposition, putting Venezuela on track for free and fair presidential elections in 2024. 

This possibility was mentioned in a report previously featured at this site. Clearly the very high fuel prices are exacerbating the very high inflation rates.