Biden should stop appeasing Venezuela, says Salazar

Venezuelan presidential hopeful María Corina Machado had filed a claim in December, arguing to the country’s highest court, that a ban prohibiting her from holding office was unconstitutional. The verdict came last week — and the ban was upheld. As south Florida congresswoman María Elvira Salazar told The Spectator, the conclusions reached by the “Chavista-controlled” tribunal were “unfortunate but not surprising.”

The upholding of the ban comes after months of negotiations, where the Biden administration eased sectoral sanctions in pursuit of a “path to democracy.” This approach riled up Florida Republicans, a state with a vast Venezuelan-American population.

In December, Florida senator Marco Rubio urged the White House to reimpose sanctions, arguing that the November 30 deadline had passed and Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro neither released US hostages nor granted Machado her political rights. This Wednesday, joined by Florida senator Rick Scott and Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, Rubio called for sanctions to be immediately re-imposed.

The White House responded by reimposing some sanctions. The move, though, omits Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the Venezuelan oil and gas company, which accounts for an overwhelming majority of Venezuelan exports. Still, the Treasury Department says that the waivers for those sectors will end in April unless the Maduro regime allows all candidates to run.  

Salazar, like the senators, considers the move consistent with the Biden administration’s gutless and naive Venezuela policy thus far. “The United States and the Venezuelan opposition now have no leverage with the release of Alex Saab [a Maduro crony released by the US during the negotiations] and the Narcosobrinos [two of Maduro’s nephews exchanged in 2022], and the removal of sanctions on PDVSA,” the congresswoman told The Spectator.

“The United States needs to regain the upper hand by re-imposing sanctions on PDVSA and other key economic sectors,” Salazar said. “María Corina Machado is the overwhelming choice of the Venezuelan people and needs to be supported by any means possible.”

Salazar also pointed out that today, Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodríguez “threatened to stop receiving deportation flights filled with Venezuelan nationals.” This, she argued, shows how “the United States’s national security is affected by a regime that willingly plays a major role in drug and human trafficking.”

“The United States cannot fail at this extremely important moment for democracy in Venezuela,” the congresswoman said. With her colleagues, the Cuban-American representative is pushing for the Biden administration to switch gears and leave their appeasement policies in the past.