Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a ceremony marking the start of the judicial year at the Supreme Court in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)
Important Takeaways:
- Maduro Regime Releases 2 US Captives, Key Dem Blasts Biden for Negotiating with Putin’s Top Ally in Latin America
- Following a secret visit to Venezuela last weekend by senior Biden administration officials, captives Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Fernandez were released by Venezuelan authorities.
- Eight other Americans remain in captivity. Cardenas and five other executives of Houston-based Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant, had been detained by Venezuela since 2017. The others have been detained on allegations of embezzlement and terrorism.
- Senior U.S. officials visited with the socialist dictatorship in Venezuela over the weekend to discuss the chance of easing oil sanctions on the major crude-exporting country.
- Maduro, who has been indicted in New York on drug trafficking charges, is Putin’s top ally in Latin America and his country is a top oil exporter. Venezuela’s reentry into U.S. energy markets could mitigate the fallout at the pump from a possible oil embargo on Russia.
- Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association told Just The News since cutting off Russian imports there are now only two ways for the U.S. to get oil.
- “You have two options,” Stewart explained. “One, you import from the Iranians and the Venezuelans, two terrorism-sponsoring states. Or you open up the U.S. domestic production.
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