Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Venezuela envoy urges Biden to ease oil sanctions

Date:

Fernando Blasi, the new representative of Venezuela’s opposition in the United States, is urging the Biden administration to ease oil sanctions on Nicolas Maduro’s government. Blasi warns that failure to do so could result in Venezuela becoming another Cuba, with Washington being scapegoated for increasing authoritarianism and economic hardships. This marks a sharp break from the opposition’s “maximum pressure campaign” of the past four years, which relied on the US to force Maduro out of power. The failure of this approach led to the removal of Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and a shift towards a more horizontal style of leadership of mostly exiled politicians.

Blasi has discussed the future of US sanctions with mainly Democratic members of Congress, including Gregory Meeks, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While designated as the National Assembly’s envoy in the US, he cautions that he does not speak for the opposition Unity Platform as a whole. Many of his allies in the opposition coalition bristle at the idea of rewarding Maduro without upfront commitments to level the playing field ahead of next year’s presidential election.

The Biden administration has signalled its willingness to provide sanctions relief in exchange for concrete steps by Maduro, such as promising not to ban whatever candidate emerges from opposition primaries later this year. However, it has largely left in place a punishing array of sanctions inherited from the Trump administration, which made forcing regime change in the OPEC nation one of its top foreign policy priorities.

Blasi argues that the pace of sanctions relief is moving too slowly and that negotiations in Mexico, where the government and opposition were supposed to hammer out conditions for next year’s election, have not taken place for months. He says any easing of sanctions would provide much-needed relief to regular Venezuelans battered by high inflation and shortages. If Maduro fails to honour his commitments, concessions can be quickly reversed.

Blasi left Venezuela before Maduro took power in 2013, escaping what he said was an attempt by security forces to extort his medical services company. He settled in Miami where he built a real estate financing company. He owes his newfound prominence to his affiliation with the New Era party, a political movement centred around his hometown of Maracaibo, the oil hub in western Venezuela governed by Manuel Rosales, who in recent days has also sided with Maduro in calling for an end to the sanctions. New Era is one of four political parties that dominate the sprawling anti-Maduro coalition.

Reflecting the opposition’s new down-to-earth approach, Blasi says he will not be looking to take the title of Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington as was the case in the past four years. The budget for diplomatic missions approved last month by opposition lawmakers elected to the National Assembly in 2015 was $646,800 – compared with an average of $5.8m over the past three years. Still, to operate legally in the US, Blasi and a small team are seeking diplomatic cover. They will also need some sort of official recognition to access the $144m Venezuela’s central bank has parked at the US Federal Reserve and which the opposition relies on to finance the so-called Freedom Fund to speed up a political transition.

As part of his outreach in the US, Blasi wants to improve relations with Democrats and ensure continued bipartisan support for the opposition. He says the Trump administration’s unique embrace of Venezuelans’ fight for freedom led many in the opposition to rally behind hardline Republican politicians in Florida and sideline the views of Democrats.

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