US set to reimpose Venezuela oil sanctions over election disqualifications

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro greets supporters during a rally in Caracas on January 23, 2024 – Copyright AFP RODRIGO ARANGUA

Shaun TANDON

The United States warned Tuesday it will reimpose sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector, relaxed under a reconciliation deal, after opponents to President Nicolas Maduro were barred from running against him.

The State Department issued a deadline to end a license that allowed US dealings with Venezuela’s key money-making sector, saying Maduro was violating an agreement with the opposition reached in Barbados in October.

“Absent progress between Maduro and his representatives and the opposition Unitary Platform, particularly on allowing all presidential candidates to compete in this year’s election, the United States will not renew the license when it expires on April 18, 2024,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

The United States earlier said it was immediately winding down another license that allowed operations by the Venezuelan state-owned gold mining company, Minerven.

“The United States remains strongly committed to supporting dialogue between the parties and to the aspirations of the Venezuelan people for a democratic future,” Miller said.

“We will continue to work with the international community and all peaceful democratic actors across the political spectrum in Venezuela and leverage mechanisms at our disposal to encourage a return to the principles in the Barbados agreement,” he said.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court, loyal to Maduro, on Friday upheld a 15-year ban on holding public office against the president’s main opponent in elections due this year, Maria Corina Machado.

The court also confirmed the ineligibility of a possible opposition stand-in — two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles. 

– Maduro’s staying power –

The United States is a longtime foe of the leftist Maduro, who has presided over a crumbling economy that has sent millions fleeing Venezuela.

In early 2019, the United States under then president Donald Trump declared Maduro to be illegitimate after concerns about a previous election, with most Western and Latin American countries switching recognition to then opposition leader Juan Guaido.

But years of sanctions and other pressure failed to dislodge Maduro, who enjoys support from a political patronage system, the military and Cuba, Russia and China.

President Joe Biden’s administration, after initially keeping Trump’s sanctions approach, has shifted gears after seeing no end in sight to Maduro and after Venezuela’s two key neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, elected left-wing leaders who sought a more conciliatory approach.

After the Barbados agreement, the United States gave the green light to Chevron to do business with Venezuela and arranged a prisoner swap with Maduro that freed Americans.

US officials privately acknowledged that they saw limited prospects for Maduro to allow a vote in which he could lose power. Machado, after the court decision, accused Maduro and his “criminal system” of seeking “fraudulent elections.”

Maduro last week made claims of plans to assassinate him and said that the Barbados agreements are “mortally wounded.”

In Washington, the Republican Party has denounced Biden over Venezuela but even members of the president’s Democratic Party have called on him to tighten the screws on Maduro after the disqualifications.

In a joint statement Monday, three leading Democratic senators — Ben Cardin, Dick Durbin and Tim Kaine — called on the United States to reimpose sanctions “until a clean election is assured.”