The US might soon grant Chevron a license to pump oil in Venezuela in a move that would ease crippling sanctions that were imposed on the South American country by the Trump administration.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the easing of sanctions is contingent on the implementation of a $3 billion humanitarian project that is expected to be announced by President Nicolas Maduro and his opposition this weekend. The project would be paid for with Venezuelan funds that have been seized by the US.
The license Chevron would be granted would still be limited as it would allow the oil company to regain partial control of its oil production in Venezuela, but it won’t be able to build new facilities until debts are repaid.
The Trump administration began imposing harsh sanctions on Venezuela in 2017 and really ramped them up in 2019 when the US recognized opposition figure Juan Guaido as “interim president” and backed a failed coup attempt against Maduro.
The US continued to increase sanctions on Venezuela following the failed coup and the country is essentially under an economic embargo. The Journal report said that the license for Chevron would put the company under a framework of sanctions similar to the ones that went into effect in 2019.
US sanctions on Venezuela have had a devastating impact on the civilian population, but the Biden administration’s steps to ease sanctions are likely an effort to keep global oil prices down. The move comes as the US and its allies are planning to implement a price cap on Russian oil that could backfire and cause Russia to significantly cut production.
US Might Give Chevron a License to Pump Oil in Venezuela.
The move would ease some sanctions on Venezuela.
we will allow you to import food and medicine after we allow chevron to steal your oil.
….. uncle samuel
Probably more larceny for the pockets of the U.S politician “allowers!”
Yeah,” that could backfire and cause Russia to significantly cut production.” AND cut off more energy to already starved European ‘allies’, perhaps cause widespread outrage & animosity amongst European publics & political leaders!
Russia is following the money to the East. It will get to the point where Russia will do just fine without doing business with the West. Europe can just pay a much higher price for American gas and other fossil fuel products. The “opportunity” Blinken crowed about.
Free Donziger……………..F*CK CHEVRON!
He is free now.
Invest in cvx if you want to win this one.
And….. what happens when Venezuela takes a look at Chevron’s ‘license to pump’ and says, “NOPE”? Are we going to invade in order to take their oil anyway? Just because the US gives a company a license to do business in Country X that doesn’t mean Country X has to agree to it.
We have seen a surge of Venezuelan migrants thanks to their collapsing economy. Actions have consequences. What exactly is our beef with Venezuela? Have they attacked anybody? Maybe they don’t run their own country as best as can be, but that strikes me as mostly their business.
I understand you mean well and was tracking and agreed until I read, “Maybe they don’t run their own country as best as can be…” Did you ever ask yourself why? Could it be because we don’t let them? Could it be because we actually stole their money? Are we running ours any better? …Yes? Have you driven through small towns that have been totally gutted and are full of illegal drug activities? Have you seen any video clips of police brutality? … People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
“…but it won’t be able to build new facilities until debts are repaid.” You have uncovered the plot. Debts would never be paid. Our knee will remain on their neck. Believe me when I say that I wish I was wrong.
The US maintains sanctions on too many of the world’s oil producers, all at the same time.
The only way to manage the oil supply shortage is to make choices. At first glance, this seems to be such a choice.
However, the US is trying to get oil from Venezuela while still maintaining the core of those sanctions. It seeks to control where the money paid will go — it will go back to the US to pay “debts” the US demands.
So, it is really just the US trying to get the oil without paying for it to the current government. That did not work with Russian oil or gas either.
Whether it be bananas or oil, it seems certain that US policy will always support the efforts of US citizens to control the wealth of vulnerable countries south of our border.
You mean chevron. Chevron is not the US, but it might as well be a good chunk of it thanks to lobbying.
“the crippling sanctions”
What’s the matter, Dave? Venezuela was taken over by Marxists using non-White votes, with the promise of looting those who built the country’s businesses. Isn’t Marxism supposed to be victorious over the capitalists? Since when do Marxist countries need trade with the capitalist West? Aren’t they self-sufficient when the people work as one instead of like selfish capitalist Whites? Show me where in Marxist literature it says they will need trade with Western countries.
By the way, the Marxists were destroying the country just fine before the sanctions. They set price caps to ruin production, and the Marxists simply took land, homes and businesses that they wanted. The communist leader ignored the parliament and ruled by decree while you and others were complaining about the West not accepting the Venezuelan president as legitimate.
Especially genius to give cheap North Korean mopeds to people living in the suburbs around Caracas, so they could travel into the city, rob people – especially targeting anyone with light skin – and go back out again. The leaders would probably like to set up armed gangs to control the neighborhoods with bats and chains, like in Cuba, but that would be a bit too obvious.
Venezuela’s productive people have left now, and they aren’t coming back. Another victory over the capitalists by the inevitable Marxist march toward world conquest. Praise Lenin!
What’s your preoccupation with “whites” all about?
Jon is referring to the centuries-old notion that Europeans had a special destiny to range around the world displacing and murdering the indigenous, stealing their land and resources, and subjugating them economically forever. In America this was called Manifest Destiny. As John L. O’Sullivan put it back in 1845, “That claim is by the right of our “manifest destiny” to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.” Different century, different continent, same idea.
That seems like a more elaborate — no less irrational, just more gilded — version of what he’s talking about. Some reasonably good thinkers fell victim to that kind of thinking. Jon’s version of it reads more like the low-IQ guy near closing time at the bar convincing himself that someone else is to blame for his failings.
“War is a mere continuation of policy by other means”
— Carl von Clausewitz
And sanctions are only the waging of war by other means, and the ‘policy’ is that the US empire rules the entire world and everyone alive in it, which ‘explains’ (but not excuses or justifies) the insanity of the US issuing a license to pump Venezuelan oil !
People forget that every empire in history eventually is buried in the sands of time… except this one. The Union of Concerned Scientists predict that if as few as 100 megaton nuclear bombs are set off anywhere on the planet it will bring on nuclear winter: a period of abnormal cold and darkness caused by a layer of smoke and dust in the atmosphere blocking the sun’s rays. We’re talking not just the end of an empire, but maybe the end of the human race. On the bright side, nuclear winter will most likely end galloping global warming which should make all the environmentalists happy.
I enjoy your sense of agony and ecstasy… Better put: irony.
That’s been long debunked man, nuclear winter is old folk lore from the cord war era. Every nuke could go off in every major populated city, and yeah it would suck, but not much would change for the survivors. I think they said 500 million would die? A drop in the barrel of 9b.
Bloomberg seems to think that the number is closer to 5 billion.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-15/five-billion-face-death-in-full-scale-nuclear-war-study-shows