Florida Republican lawmakers asked President Joe Biden and two of his Cabinet secretaries in a letter Thursday to commit to maintaining current sanctions against Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his associates following the administration’s recent outreach to Venezuela.
In the letter to Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a group of Florida lawmakers listed atrocities committed by Maduro’s regime and warned against lifting sanctions as a way to bolster oil supplies following Saturday’s meeting between Maduro and a U.S. delegation.
“By negotiating with the Maduro dictatorship, your administration is undermining American foreign policy towards Venezuela and is neglecting the U.S. commitment to the Venezuelan exile community,” the letter states.
The outreach to the oil-rich South American country occurred days before Biden’s administration announced a ban on Russian oil imports after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden acknowledged Tuesday that the ban on Russian oil would likely mean higher energy prices at home.
The decision to begin talks with Maduro as Russia wages war on Ukraine has been coldly received by Venezuelans living in South Florida.
The Florida lawmakers wrote that they “represent several thousands of Venezuelan nationals, most who have come to the United States fleeing the brutality and the butchery committed by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.”
The letter was led by Rep. Carlos Gimenez, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rick Scott, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, all Republicans from Florida.
The letter asks whether the U.S. is considering weakening sanctions in exchange for oil production and whether the Biden administration is considering purchasing any energy supply from Venezuela, or facilitating its purchase by private entities.
The lawmakers also asked Biden’s administration to affirm that the U.S. still considers Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to be the country’s rightful president rather than Maduro, a stance that the U.S. government has maintained since President Donald Trump’s administration. It also asks whether Biden will “commit to maintaining all sanctions currently put in place on the Maduro regime and his associates.”
One of Blinken’s top deputies, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday that the U.S. still considers Guaidó to be the rightful president of Venezuela. She was responding to a line of questioning from Rubio.
“There’s zero pivot in our Venezuela strategy, Senator,” Nuland told Rubio.
But Rubio argued that Biden’s administration had handed Maduro a propaganda victory at Guaidó’s expense by holding the meeting at all.
“That meeting did tremendous damage to the person that we recognize as the president of Venezuela. It’s incredibly troubling,” Rubio said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also affirmed that the U.S. still recognizes Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, but she also defended the value of engaging diplomatically with Maduro. Venezuela released two Americans from detention this week as a sign of goodwill following the initial meeting.
“There are obviously ongoing concerns about the health and well-being of anyone detained, whether it’s there or in Venezuela or Russia or Afghanistan, Syria, China, Iran, and elsewhere. Those are conversations we are always going to want to engage in,” Psaki said.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a South Florida Democrat, applauded the release of the Americans in a Wednesday evening statement, but she also said that the U.S. should not soften sanctions against the country until it commits to a free and fair presidential election.
“Critically, neither this hostage release, nor Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warrant allowing the murderous Maduro regime to quickly stockpile petrol profits as Venezuelans still starve for food, medicine and basic human rights under his autocratic rule,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Sanctions relief should only be considered when there is a clear and irreversible commitment to restore free and fair presidential elections and cease attacks on the rule of law.”
———
