Representatives of the Biden government traveled to Caracas last weekend. This diplomatic opening also includes Saudi Arabia
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already produced two unexpected victors: Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Over the weekend, the United States began a diplomatic opening towards both countries, which it needs to supply the Russian oil that is disappearing from the market as a result of the sanctions on financial transactions imposed on Russia.
Saudi Arabia is the only producing country that has the capacity to pump more crudewhile Venezuela can also get more hydrocarbons because its exports have been limited both by international sanctions and by the disastrous technical and management situation of its state oil monopoly, PDVSAconverted by Chavismo into a kind of ATM to finance the regime.
In contrast, in the United States, which is the world’s largest oil producer, it will take six months to significantly increase production, according to industry sources at S&P’s annual CERA Week conference, which began yesterday in the city of Houston. At the same time, the losers in this dynamic are the democratic forces in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
In the first of those countries, the Biden government is backing down on its policy of distancing, and even a visit by the president to Riyadh next month is not ruled out.
In Venezuela the change has been even more radical: on Saturday, in an unexpected diplomatic move, a mission of representatives of the Government of Joe Biden traveled to Caracas secretly to meet with Nicols Maduro’s team.
Venezuelan President Juan Guaid, whom the United States recognizes, was not notified of the trip, according to the newspaper on Sunday. New York Times. This means that, in practice, Washington recognizes the Maduro regime as the government of Venezuela, thus breaking with three years in which the US, the EU, and 60 other countries have considered Guaid the legitimate president of the country.
The American opening seems to be based on two pillars. On the one hand, the isolation of Vladimir Putin. The only countries that recognize the republics invented by Russia in the former ex-Soviet republics (including two in the Ukraine) are Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru. That highlights the tremendous ties between those countries and Putin.
Paradoxically, Nicaragua and Venezuela are the closest to Russia. That is because the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega He has always relied heavily on Moscow, and Maduro’s personal security is in the hands of the Russians, since he does not trust the Cubans. Conversely, Cuba does not need Russia because it already has its own repressive and institutional apparatus created and established,” according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who adds that “Havana is interested in economic aid, and that is something that Russia does not ask to give it.”
The other element is the tanker. Venezuela’s crude is heavy, like Russian. That simplifies, in principle, replacing one with another. 3% of the crude oil that the United States imports comes from Russia, although, when derivative products are considered, the proportion reaches 8%.
The Biden government does not want to suspend imports of Russian oil, but most of the congressmen -including weights attached to his party, such as the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi- they are pressuring you to do it.
And the cancellation of purchases of oil and derivatives from Russia by the United States would not have a very large impact on the global market in terms of volume. But its psychological consequences would be enormousas it would send a very clear signal that the United States sees energy as a weapon to force Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.
Over the weekend, the United States began talks with its European partners to reduce purchases of Russian oil. “Right now, there is a voluntary import reduction policy,” explains Philip Cornell of the Economist Impact consultancy and the thinktank Atlantic Council.
But the main importer of Russian crude, Germany doesn’t want to hear about import cuts. The German chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, declared yesterday that Berlin cannot break “overnight the quotation marks on energy imports from Russia.
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