CARACAS, Venezuela — Trade between Venezuela and the United States grew 113 percent during the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, according to the Caracas-based Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce and Trade (Venamcham), a non-governmental organization.
Venamcham’s general manager Luis García explained to the Spanish EFE news agency on Wednesday that the oil sanctions relief granted by the administration of leftist U.S. President Joe Biden to the socialist regime of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro in November helped fuel the surge in commerce between the two countries in 2023.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on November 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Last year, the Biden administration eased oil sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s rogue socialist regime during the administration of former President Donald Trump in 2019. The sanctions lifting was part of a now-frozen round of negotiations between the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan “opposition.”
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken heavily promoted the fruitless negotiations as a step towards holding a prospective “free and fair” presidential election in 2024. Both the Maduro regime and “opposition” have engaged in similar talks over the span of two decades, none of which have yielded any tangible results towards restoring democracy in Venezuela.
The sanctions relief saw the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issue Chevron a license in November that allows the California-based company to resume oil production and exports from Venezuela to the United States. The license granted to Chevron has reportedly been instrumental in Venezuela being able to experience the highest levels of oil exports in almost three and a half years as of July 2023.
U.S. President Joe Biden on September 13, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
In its latest semestral Venezuela-U.S. trade report — built using data was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau — Venamcham states that trade between Venezuela and the U.S. totaled $2.61 billion during the first half of 2023. In contrast, trade in the first half of 2022 totaled $1.38 billion. The increase in trade allowed Venezuela to record a surplus of $183 million.
The organization noted that oil exports to the United States amounted to $1.209 billion during the first half of 2023 against only $987,000 during the first half of 2022 — representing a 122,392.4-percent increase. Venezuelan oil exports to the United States amounted to 86 percent of the South American country’s total exports to the U.S.
All Venezuelan exports to the United States during the first half of 2023 — including non-oil exports — rose 555 percent, totalling $1.396 billion. Venezuela’s U.S. imports, on the other hand, increased by a mere 19.8 percent.
García pointed out to EFE that although the United States has imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime, “there are businesses that continue to develop in a ‘normal’ way between both nations,” highlighting the growth of “imports from” the North American country as an example.
“There are sanctions, but it is not a blockade,” García told EFE, rebutting the Maduro regime’s continued claims that Venezuela is a “victim” of a “criminal blockade” imposed by the United States.
Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has repeatedly demanded that the United States — as well as other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union — lift all sanctions on his regime’s officials and state-owned companies in exchange for holding “free and fair” presidential elections in 2024. The Maduro regime has so far offered zero guarantees that the upcoming election, which still has no set date, will be free or fair.
“The licenses that the United States has given to Chevron, those that are known and those that are not known, go in the right direction, but they are not enough for what Venezuela demands,” Maduro said in November.
Nonetheless, reports published at the end of August indicate that the Biden Administration has engaged in talks with representatives of the Maduro regime, offering to temporarily lift U.S. oil sanctions imposed on the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) oil company in exchange for “free and fair” elections.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.