- Gerardo Lissardy
- BBC News World
3 hours
image source, Getty Images
After insisting for a long time with sanctions, reproaches and extreme pressure, the United States began to relax its policy towards two of its biggest Latin American antagonists: Cuba and Venezuela.
Washington separately announced this week that it would ease its restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, as well as negotiations with the main US oil company in Venezuela.
The measures are limited and are far from presupposing a normalization of relations of the US with the governments of both countries.
But the turn that Joe Biden’s White House seeks to give to the heavy-handed strategy designed by former President Donald Trump for those countries is evident.
And behind this change there are several reasons, according to experts.
A controversial summit
The announcements from Washington came as the Biden administration prepares to host the ninth Summit of the Americas next month in Los Angeles.
The prelude to the conclave is marked by struggles and a boycott risk of some presidents for the probable exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries that the US has suggested it would leave out as autocratic.
image source, Getty Images
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has conditioned his attendance at the meeting to the participation of these three nations, a position that his Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce, also assumed.
Other Latin American governments whose presidents plan to attend the summit, such as Argentina, Chile and Honduras, have also asked that all countries in the region be invited.
The US has responded that it has yet to make the final decision on the guests and opened a dialogue with López Obrador regarding his claim.
In the Biden government they deny that this controversy over the summit has something to do with the changes policy towards Cuba and Venezuela.
“The timing of this I would say is completely separate from what the Mexican president has said regarding Cuba,” a senior US government official told reporters Tuesday regarding the sanctions relief on Venezuela.
The official said that the measures, which include a “limited” authorization for the US oil company Chevron to negotiate possible future activities with Venezuela, seek to support a restart of dialogue between the government of Nicolás Maduro and his opponents.
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The government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela will be able to enter into negotiations with the US oil company Chevron.
He also pointed out that the Biden government had spent months preparing its new policy towards Cuba, which authorizes commercial flights to cities on the island beyond Havana and suspends the limit of US$1,000 per quarter on remittances.
However, some analysts note a clear link between these changes and the region’s criticism of the Summit of the Americas to be held June 6-10.
“It is a sign that the Biden administration does not want to reach the summit empty-handed,” says Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, an independent analysis center in Washington, to BBC Mundo.
And he adds that the goal of the White House is to show differences with the Trump government in the policies on Cuba, Venezuela and migration, amid doubts regarding the commitments that will be achieved at the summit.
In fact, many anticipated that Biden would ease Trump’s restrictions on Cuba and Venezuela shortly following taking office in January 2020, but different reasons delayed the change.
image source, Getty Images
The Summit of the Americas takes place in June in Los Angeles.
“The Obvious Country”
Despite the loosening of restrictions on Cuba and Venezuela, analysts consider improbable that Biden finally invite both countries to the conclave in Los Angeles.
Domestic political reasons also weigh in on this: the presence of Cuban or Venezuelan authorities in the US would cause internal rejection months before the mid-term elections in November.
The changes announced this week by Washington were criticized not only by Republican opponents, but also by Democrats such as Bob Menendez, who chairs the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations committee.
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Democratic Senator Bob Menendez has rejected the Biden administration’s plans for Cuba and Venezuela.
“Giving Maduro a handful of undeserved handouts only for his regime to promise to sit down to negotiate is a strategy doomed to fail,” Menendez said in a statement.
The senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition that his name be withheld denied that the Chevron permit would result in increased profits for the Maduro government, which remains under sanctions from Washington.
He also warned that US might further increase or ease sanctions to Venezuela depending on what happens in the dialogue between the Maduro government and its opponents.
And he pointed out that Washington’s goal is to make progress towards free and fair elections in Venezuela, denying that the focus is on oil.
But some foresee a higher revenue for the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA following this announcement.
“Sooner or later, Chevron will explore for oil and PDVSA will benefit from it,” Ryan Berg, researcher for Latin America at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan organization in Washington, told BBC Brazil.
Others believe that the US sees in Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world, an opportunity to lower the price of oilwhich soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
In March, as the US pushed for sanctions on Russian oil, Biden envoys made a surprise trip to Venezuela for private talks with Maduro, a Moscow ally who has said he is willing to increase oil production.
Venezuela released two American prisoners following that encounterwhich also drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Washington.
Now the idea gains strength for some that the West’s conflict with Russia has also moved US policy towards Venezuela.
“The visit in March (to Maduro) was part of a global look at how to substitute oil from Russia to the world with production elsewhere,” says Arnson. “And in Latin America, the obvious country is Venezuela.”
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