Venezuela’s ruling government and opposition are holding talks in Mexico, with the hopes of reaching a number of agreements in order to aid the country as it suffers through one of its worst times of crisis. Over the last few years, nearly a fourth of the country’s population have fled, primarily due to Venezuela’s economies near collapse due to aging and mismanaged oil production infrastructure. The talks in Mexico hope to right the ship by passing two major agreements: the Venezuelan government will transfer $3 Billion to a humanitarian program run by the US, and in turn the US will approve a recent operations expansion request by Chevron Corp. Chevron’s expansion is expected to bring badly needed funding to repair and expand upon per-existing oil production infrastructure, in the hopes enabling Venezuela to return to prominence as a major oil exporter. Sanctions from the US and relations between the Venezuelan government and opposition are expected to continue to improve, as each side makes concessions in order to advance their needs.
This is a rare instance of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, taking a level of accountability for the state his country is in now. I’d expect his push for fewer sanctions, by any means necessary, to continue, particularly because he has a clear goal in mind: rebuilding the nations economy by expanding its oil operations. On the United States’ part, having Venezuela become a major oil exporter is incredibly beneficial; with the void left by Russia due to war in Ukraine, someone needs to fill it in order to keep the world, and most importantly the US’s allies in Europe, running. Venezuela is capable of doing just that, and as such a rise in oil production from Venezuela would be useful to the US. And with Maduro clearly willing to make concessions in order to achieve economic stability, the US can still get stuff in exchange for its leniency.
Link to Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/25/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-talks.html