From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Venezuela’s Economy Poised to Strengthen With Sanctions Relief   
   By Juan Forero and Kejal Vyas, Oct. 19, 2023, WSJ   
   The Biden administration’s removal of an array of U.S. sanctions against   
   Venezuela’s oil sector is designed to stabilize that country’s calamitous   
   economy and, in time, reduce the huge outflow of migrants toward the American   
   southwestern border,    
   said people familiar with the negotiations that led to sanctions relief.   
      
   Removing sanctions for six months on oil, gas and the mining sector as   
   announced by U.S. officials Wednesday night is expected by economists to boost   
   an economy that had contracted 80% and led 7.7 million people to flee over the   
   last decade. Hundreds of    
   thousands of them wound up in the U.S. Scenes of Venezuelans crowding the U.S.   
   border and crowding shelters in New York and other cities have challenged   
   President Biden, who faces a re-election next year.   
      
   Talks between U.S. and Venezuelan envoys in recent months led to a tentative   
   breakthrough, with Biden administration officials announcing American and   
   foreign companies could produce and export Venezuelan oil and gas and conduct   
   business with state-   
   energy monopoly Petróleos de Venezuela. In what U.S. officials called a   
   â€œpartial agreement,â€� Venezuela would pave the way toward fair elections by   
   respecting the opposition’s choice of candidate, letting rivals campaign on   
   state media and    
   permitting international observers to monitor the vote.   
      
   The sharp shift in U.S. policy means Venezuela would over a year’s time have   
   access to at least $4 billion in oil money simply by being able to export to   
   the U.S. that is in contrast to current customers as far away as China, who   
   import Venezuelan oil    
   at heavy discounts to market prices due to sanctions, said Francisco   
   Rodriguez, an economist who has had a working relationship with Venezuelan   
   officials.    
      
   Jacking up production between 250,000 and 600,000 barrels a day from the   
   824,000 pumped daily in September could mean anywhere from $10 billion to $19   
   billion annually in government revenue, he said. Once Latin America’s   
   fifth-largest economy,    
   Venezuela’s is now the size of the Milwaukee metropolitan area, according to   
   International Monetary Fund data.    
      
   â€œWhen the U.S. imposed sanctions it had a significant impact because   
   Venezuela had lost its most important market, and many markets around the   
   world didn’t want to do business with Venezuela,â€� Rodriguez said. “Now   
   there’s space for Venezuela to    
   produce more oil.â€�   
      
   Thomas Shannon, a former high-ranking U.S. diplomat in Latin America, said   
   that the sanctions had the unintended effect of accelerating migration while   
   severing communications between Washington and Caracas. By discussing an oil   
   opening, the issue of    
   political prisoners and migration, including the repatriation of deported   
   Venezuelans to their homeland, Shannon said, “both sides are looking for a   
   way forward in the relationship.â€�   
      
   If American companies working with the state firm, best known as PdVSA, do   
   raise oil production, U.S. officials and economists say, then Venezuela could   
   begin to ease a humanitarian crisis marked by 400% annual inflation, a nearly   
   worthless currency and    
   often dysfunctional water and electricity services.   
      
   â€œI think the administration is hoping that if [Venezuelan President   
   Nicolás] Maduro holds up his end of the bargain, sanctions relief will   
   translate to economic improvements on the ground, which will cause fewer   
   Venezuelans to flee,â€� said Geoff    
   Ramsey, an analyst with the Washington-based Atlantic Council who closely   
   monitored the negotiations. “However, the reality is that Venezuelans are   
   not only fleeing economic collapse, but they are also fleeing authoritarianism   
   and systemic human rights    
   violations. So, ultimately the impact that this will have on the flow of   
   Venezuelan migrants will also depend on Maduro sticking to his commitments.â€�   
      
   Already, there are questions about those commitments, even as U.S. officials   
   have been clear that the sanctions could be revoked or amended should the   
   regime fail to make progress.    
      
   On Thursday, Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro’s top negotiator and a powerful figure   
   in the government, said Venezuelan officials won’t permit some of the   
   opposition presidential hopefuls to run in next year’s elections. In a news   
   conference, Rodriguez    
   lambasted his U.S. counterparts for their insistence that Caracas lift its   
   prohibition on Maria Corina Machado from holding office. Machado is the   
   opposition’s most likely candidate for next year’s elections.   
      
   â€œVenezuela doesn’t accept pressures, blackmail, nor bribes or meddling   
   from any other country,â€� Rodriguez said in a news conference. “Can a   
   person who is sanctioned…and deemed politically ineligible be a presidential   
   candidate? No they cannot.†  
   �   
      
   American officials say they want to see Maduro restore candidates’ electoral   
   rights by the end of November or face a reversal in the U.S. opening.   
      
   Among those who have cast doubts on the U.S.-Maduro arrangement is Machado   
   herself, who polls show is slated to easily win a primary on Sunday to choose   
   the opposition’s candidate. In a statement, the conservative politician, who   
   had long favored    
   international pressure against Maduro, said she had no role in the agreement   
   signed by the opposition’s negotiators on Tuesday. She noted the regime’s   
   long history of breaking promises.   
      
   Nations that guided the process, including Norway and the U.S., “must serve   
   as guarantors for the Venezuelan people,â€� she said.   
      
   People familiar with the negotiations said that the U.S. was driven by a range   
   of objectives, from trying to coax the Maduro regime to making reforms that   
   could re-establish democracy to seeking a new source of oil amid conflicts in   
   Ukraine and Gaza.    
   American policy makers, though, have also spoken about the impact that a more   
   prosperous and democratic Venezuela would have on migration.   
      
   Large numbers of the Venezuelan migrants arriving to the U.S. border come   
   directly from their home country, suggesting the outflow remains heavy, Juan   
   Gonzalez, the National Security Council director for Western Hemisphere   
   Affairs, said at a forum last    
   year. “It’s in our interest that political and economic stability return   
   to tackle migration.â€�   
      
      
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