The New York Times confirmed that US officials will travel to Venezuela while the West isolates Putin

He confirmed that senior US officials will travel to Venezuela on Saturday to meet the Nicolas Maduro regime The New York Times After consulting people familiar with the matter.

If the flight is confirmed It will be the highest visit by US officials to Caracas in years, spurred by a desire to separate Russia from its remaining allies in Latin America.

The United States cut diplomatic ties with Maduro and closed its embassy in Caracas in 2019, after the authoritarian leader was accused of electoral fraud. The Trump administration has sanctioned Venezuelan oil exports and the country’s top officials, and has also recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

Maduro responded to the sanctions by seeking economic and diplomatic help from Russia, as well as from Iran and China. Russian energy companies and banks have been instrumental in allowing Venezuela to continue exporting oil, the country’s largest foreign exchange earner, despite the sanctions.

Now, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the United States to pay more attention to President Vladimir Putin’s allies in Latin America.Which Washington believes could become security threats if the confrontation with Russia deepens,” according to current and former US officials who spoke to The New York Times On condition of anonymity.

With the collapse of the Russian economy, The United States seizes the opportunity to promote its agenda among authoritarian regimes in Latin America that may begin to see Putin as an increasingly weak ally.he is‘, confirms the North American media.

The New York Times Details that when the United States and its allies began looking this month at the possibility of imposing sanctions on Russian oil and gas exports to punish the country for the devastation caused by Ukraine, prominent voices affiliated with the two major US political parties pointed to Venezuela as a possible alternative.

Republicans have been involved in talks about resuming the oil trade, including Scott Taylor, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who is working with Robert Strick, a Washington lobbyist who briefly signed up to represent the Maduro regime in 2020 and kept in touch with people from around you. .

Taylor said he spoke Friday night with a Venezuelan businessman who indicated that Maduro’s team was eager to reconnect with the United States. “We must seize this opportunity to achieve a diplomatic victory and a wedge between Russia and Venezuela,” he said in a statement.

Trish Reagan, a former Fox News anchor and conservative media personality, adds the New York Times, has also called for an alliance with Venezuela to replace Russian oil from the US market. “Venezuela has the largest source of oil reserves by far, should we give it to the Chinese and the Russians?” he wrote on Twitter on Friday.

It is not clear how long the US delegation, which includes senior officials from the State Department and the White House, will remain in Caracas, or with whom the group will meet. Spokesmen for Maduro, the State Department and the National Security Council in Washington did not respond to New York Times requests for comment.

“If the United States reduces imports of Russian oil, Venezuela can replace part of the lost supplies,” Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan energy expert at Rice University in Houston, told the media.

Maduro seems open to discussing oil deals. He said in a public speech last Thursday, “Here is Venezuela’s oil, which is available to everyone who wants to produce and buy it, whether he is an investor from Asia, Europe or the United States.”

As the American newspaper states, Maduro and other Russian allies in Latin America began to distance themselves from the Russian offensive.. Indeed, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba abstained or did not vote on the two proposed resolutions at the United Nations this week to condemn Russian aggression.

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