US delegation visits Venezuela to discuss oil

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro at a polling station in Caracas with his granddaughter on November 21, 2021. © AP Photo/Javier Vegas

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As the international community seeks to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior officials from the White House and the US State Department traveled to Venezuela on Saturday March 5 to meet with members of the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro, ally longtime Moscow, reports The

New York Times

. 

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The visit of an American delegation to Venezuela is surprising: the Venezuelan president gave

his support to his Russian counterpart

and qualified the international sanctions against Russia as a “ 

crime

 ”.

This visit is the first since 2018 and the re-election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a re-election described as fraudulent by the Americans and a good part of the international community.

The situation has changed

Subsequently, Washington recognized

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido

as interim president and above all imposed a series of sanctions.

Among them: the ban on Venezuela selling its crude oil on the American market.

But the war in Ukraine changed the situation.

In Caracas, the American delegation wants to probe whether Nicolas Maduro is ready to distance himself from Vladimir Putin and whether the United States could not replace part of their imports of Russian oil with Venezuelan oil which they have stopped buying. , reports the

New York Times

.

A first round without agreement

According to information from Reuters, a first round ended without an agreement between the two countries.

And we do not know if a new meeting will be held this Sunday, March 6.

A few weeks ago, the US administration said it would not lift sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector until Nicolas Maduro's socialist regime held free elections. 

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To read also: The Russian presence in Latin America: "Challenging the Monroe Doctrine"

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  • Venezuela

  • United States

  • Energies

  • Russia

  • Ukraine

  • Nicola Maduro

  • juan guaido