The Biden administration is preparing to reduce sanctions against the authoritarian regime in Venezuela to allow Chevron to resume pumping oil there, paving the way for a potential reopening of U.S. and European markets to oil exports from Venezuela, according to people familiar with the proposal.
In return for the significant sanctions relief, the Venezuelan President’s government Nicola Maduro would resume long-suspended talks with the country’s opposition to discuss the conditions needed to hold free and fair presidential elections in 2024, the people said. The United States, the Venezuelan government and some Venezuelan opposition figures have also reached an agreement that would free up hundreds of millions of dollars of frozen Venezuelan public funds in American banks to pay for imports of food, medicine and of equipment for the country’s dilapidated electrical grid and municipal water systems.
