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A Bloomberg news agency report revealed that Joe Biden will seek to bring the regime of Nicolás Maduro closer, while fulfilling his promise of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans. The Democrat would have his sights set on reversing the actions taken by the Donald Trump Administration.
Although it has become clear over the years that dialogue with the Maduro regime is mission impossible, Joe Biden’s advisors are preparing to negotiate with the tyranny.
“The Biden Administration intends to push for free and fair elections, offering in return relief from sanctions, said people who requested anonymity because the new team is being formed,” Bloomberg said.
The news agency said the Biden Administration would be open to direct talks with Maduro without the condition being to negotiate the terms of his surrender.
“The president-elect’s team will review existing sanctions to determine where to expand restrictions with the help of international allies and what measures could be lifted if Maduro moves toward the democratic goal,” sources told Bloomberg.
It must be remembered that Maduro has shown interest in improving relations with Biden, whom he has asked to ease the sanctions against him.
The Venezuelan opposition, led by interim President Juan Guaidó, is waiting to see what position Biden will take in relation to the interim presidency. According to Bloomberg, since late November Guaidó’s team has tried unsuccessfully to arrange a call with Biden.
During the election campaign, Joe Biden’s advisors revealed that if he won the election, the then candidate would dismantle all policies toward Latin America undertaken by the Trump government, to the point of being willing to normalize relations with the Cuban regime and negotiate with Maduro’s tyranny.
Although Maduro remains in power, the Trump government managed to reduce its room for maneuver little by little in order to stifle its income. Maduro wants to make it seem that international sanctions are responsible for the crisis, but the truth is that it was socialism that destroyed more than 10,200 companies in the South American country.
Back to Obama’s complacency?
That Biden decides to return to the era of negotiations with Chavism reminds us of the era of passivity of Barack Obama that favored Maduro’s tyranny.
Obama and his State Department intentionally sought to favor the Venezuelan regime, as stated by Roger Noriega, former Undersecretary of Hemispheric Affairs. Noriega assured that the work team of the former U.S. president blocked sanctions against Chavista leaders involved in drug trafficking and promoted dialogue between the regime and the opposition.
These statements coincide with what was published in the British newspaper The Guardian, where President Obama’s chief security advisor on Latin America, Mark Feierstein, stated that several U.S. agencies had tried to apply sanctions against drug trafficker Tareck El Aissami. However, they were “contained” in 2016 at the insistence of the State Department for fear that they would interfere with dialogue efforts between the tyranny and the opposition.
Sanctions are not to blame for the crisis in Venezuela
Before the sanctions against the regime, the Venezuelan people were already suffering from an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, since the income received by the tyranny was not invested in the citizenry, but embezzled by the kleptocracy.
The shortage of food and medicine arose after Hugo Chávez issued the Organic Labor Law, the Law of Fair Costs and Prices, and a Control of Exchange Law that prevented large and small companies from producing fully.
More than 20 multinational companies left Venezuela due to socialism. The reasons they give are the deep scarcity of raw materials, the lack of access to foreign currency, laws and regulations that have hindered economic activity and “absurdly” controlled prices, which generated strong losses in their operations.
The Organic Labor Law allowed the State to intervene in the labor decisions of private companies; the Cost Law established maximum prices for products leaving no profit margin for the companies and the Exchange Control did not allow businessmen to invest or import to manufacture the goods in the basic basket.
Companies in the South American country do not have free access to foreign currency, so importing raw materials became mission impossible, to the point that companies were closing their doors one by one.
The current shortage of gasoline, for example, is due to the lack of maintenance and operations in Venezuelan refineries that have been practically abandoned for a decade. Oil exports have dropped to less than 400,000 barrels per day, the lowest level in almost 80 years.
Sabrina Martín Rondon is a Venezuelan journalist. Her source is politics and economics. She is a specialist in corporate communications and is committed to the task of dismantling the supposed benefits of socialism // Sabrina Martín Rondon es periodista venezolana. Su fuente es la política y economía. Es especialista en comunicaciones corporativas y se ha comprometido con la tarea de desmontar las supuestas bondades del socialismo