Over the weekend, President Joe Biden drew new criticism when it was revealed that his government had announced that the oil giant Chevron will now be allowed to resume oil production in communist Venezuela.
The action by the liberal Biden administration removed previous limitations that had been imposed on businesses by the Trump administration in an effort to undermine Venezuela’s brutal socialist ruler Nicolás Maduro.
“Following this announcement and consistent with U.S. government policy, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Venezuela General License (GL) 41, authorizing Chevron Corporation to resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela.” A statement from Biden’s Treasury Department read.
The administration’s decision to give targeted sanctions relief was based on the Venezuelan government’s recent steps to assist its people and “back the restoration of democracy,” according to the statement.
Left unstated was the Biden administration’s newfound desire to reduce the cost of energy in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
The sanctions relief provided by the administration to Venezuela will last six months, after which it may be rescinded or changed by the administration.
Since 2018, the country’s inflation rate had reached around 10 million percent, leaving many people unable to sustain themselves and the economy in complete ruins.
The Biden administration’s decision to remove sanctions against Venezuela comes at a time when the government has been opposed to releasing new drilling permits in the United States, which has sparked outrage.
The Biden administration has been feverishly pursuing ways to lower the price of gasoline in the United States, including enacting massive releases of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve in addition to its new actions regarding allowing drilling in Venezuela, which was formerly considered hostile to U.S. interests. However, the Biden administration’s fixation on green energy appears to have prevented it from encouraging renewed oil drilling and exploration in the U.S. itself.
[READ MORE: House Republicans’ Next Opportunity to Drain Swamp]
