President Biden is being hammered for his decision to allow Chevron to resume pumping oil in Venezuela, with former White House Economic Adviser Stephen Moore saying the move makes “absolutely no sense.”
The Treasury Department announced Saturday that it was giving Chevron the green light to pump in the socialist country for the first time in years in a joint venture with the country’s national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela.
"On November 26th, the Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime announced the resumption of talks in Mexico City; a humanitarian agreement focused on education, health, food security, flood response, and electricity programs that will benefit the Venezuelan people; and agreement on the continuation of talks focused on the 2024 elections. Following this announcement and consistent with U.S. government policy, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued Venezuela General License (GL) 41, authorizing Chevron Corporation to resume limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela. This action reflects longstanding U.S. policy to provide targeted sanctions relief based on concrete steps that alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people and support the restoration of democracy.
This authorization prevents PdVSA from receiving profits from the oil sales by Chevron. GL 41 authorizes activity related to Chevron’s joint ventures in Venezuela only, and does not authorize other activity with PdVSA. Other Venezuela-related sanctions and restrictions imposed by the United States remain in place; the United States will vigorously enforce these sanctions and will continue to hold accountable any actor that engages in corruption, violates U.S. laws, or abuses human rights in Venezuela. " (Treasury Department)
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