The United States government said on Thursday (10) that the release of two Americans imprisoned by the regime of Nicolás Maduro was not in exchange for relief from sanctions on Venezuelan oil or guarantees to purchase the raw material.
The statement made by White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki comes two days after Gustavo Cárdenas and Jorge Alberto Fernández were released by Venezuela.
Cárdenas, an executive at Citgo, a subsidiary of Venezuelan oil company PDVSA in the US, had been detained since 2017, accused of financial crimes. Fernández is a Cuban-American arrested in 2021 on terrorism charges and unrelated to the Cárdenas case.
“Two Americans who were wrongfully detained in Venezuela will be able to hug their families once again,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement.
The release soon brought speculation about his motives, as Biden announced on the same day a ban on imports of Russian oil amid the crisis in Ukraine.
A delegation of American officials had also traveled to Caracas last Saturday (5), in what was the closest approach between the two countries since Washington closed its embassy in the Venezuelan capital and imposed sanctions on the country’s oil in 2019.
The reason for the break came the year after Maduro was re-elected for another six years in office, a bid widely contested by the international community.
The US delegation was led by Juan González, advisor for Latin America, and Ambassador James Story. Reuters sources claim they had met with Maduro himself and his deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, to discuss easing sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
If, on the one hand, the conversation did not make much progress, on the other it marked the beginning of a movement of possible rapprochement between the two countries. On Monday (7), Maduro mentioned the meeting in a televised speech.
“We had a meeting, I can call it respectful, cordial, very diplomatic,” said the dictator. “There were the flags of the United States and Venezuela and they looked very beautiful. The two flags, united, as they should be.”
The rapprochement occurs just as the impact of the global energy crisis begins to hit US gas stations, followed by sanctions on the Russian economy.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, in addition to being geographically much closer to the Americans.
In addition to the statement by the White House spokeswoman, other signs point to difficulties in relations, despite the favorable moment from an economic point of view.
Last week, Washington renewed a one-year national emergency Executive Order with respect to Venezuela.
The justification is that political persecution, press freedom and the deterioration of human rights in the country continue at critical levels, and that this represents an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”.
Maduro has also nurtured close relations with President Vladimir Putin for decades. The Russian was one of the leaders who came to the aid of the Venezuelan dictatorship when the United States implemented the embargo on the country’s oil.
Also in the military and diplomatic area, the two antagonists of Washington talk to each other: Caracas bought Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets from Moscow, which sent a navy fleet for military exercises in the Caribbean. At the UN, Venezuela did not vote in the session that condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
