Washington's brazen about-turn on Venezuela

A group of senior US officials flew to Venezuela on Saturday for a meeting with the leaders of the South American country to discuss the possibility of easing sanctions on its oil exports.

Venezuela is a major oil producer in the world, and has sound relations with Russia. The United States has imposed long-term sanctions on it banning its oil exports.

Oil is the only reason that the US has condescended to have any contact with Venezuela. The Joe Biden administration declared on Tuesday that the US bans oil and gas from Russia in a bid to pressure the latter to end its military operations in Ukraine, pushing the international oil price to a record high of $138 a barrel.

However, Venezuela produces about 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day, which is far from enough to fill the gap left by the oil sanctions on Russia, whose daily oil output is 10.51 million barrels. Therefore, even if the US lifts its oil sanctions on Venezuela, it cannot prevent oil prices from rocketing.

Although Iran has a comparable oil production capacity to Russia, it is also subject to crippling sanctions by the US-led West.

Ironically, the US administration no longer cares about the "legitimacy" of the Nicolás Maduro government of Venezuela at this moment, on which the former Donald Trump imposed its sanctions.

The Biden administration certainly needs to look for some excuses to justify its efforts to ease tensions with Venezuela. It would be convenient for it to attribute the sanctions to its predecessor, which have not realized the intended effects over the past more than three years, as the Maduro government still operates well, without being replaced by US proxies. And the country's oil industry has also rebounded from its low ebb when its daily output fell to 400,000 barrels, which lays the foundation for positive growth of its gross domestic product last year.

Reportedly, the US also requires Venezuela to condemn Russia, making that a condition for easing its sanctions. Which is easier said than done. Meanwhile, Venezuela requires the US to lift the sanctions first before talking about other items.

That won't be easy for the Biden administration. With midterm elections around the corner, "weakness" is the charge the Biden administration most dreads.