Venezuelan Maduro has expressed a desire for foreign aid, Biden agreement | Business and Economic News

Sitting on a gilded Louis XVI chair in the Miraflores office, a spacious neo-baroque palace in northwestern Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro projects perfect confidence.

The country, according to an 85-minute interview with Bloomberg Television, has released “irrational, extreme, cruel” oppression in the United States. Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are allies, their domestic opposition is powerless. If Venezuela suffers from a bad image, it is because it and its socialist government have been well funded in its campaign to demonize it.

The bombing is predictable. But among the accusations of Yankee imperialism, Maduro, who is letting dollars circulate and private companies flourish, makes a public request and directs Joe Biden. Message: It’s time to make a deal.

Venezuela, the world’s largest oil reserve, is hungry for capital and wants to regain access to the debt and commodity markets two decades after the anti-capitalist transformation and four years after US sanctions were suspended. The country is the default, the infrastructure is crushed and it is a struggle to survive millions of lives.

“If Venezuela cannot produce and sell oil, if it cannot produce and sell its gold, if it does not produce and sell its bauxite, if it does not produce iron, etc., and if it is unable to earn income in the international market, will Venezuelan bondholders have to pay? , 58, he says, his palms raised on appeal. “This world needs to change. This situation needs to be changed “.

In fact, much has changed since Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Caracas and appointed opposition leader Juan Guaido as president. His explicit goal, to oust Maduro from office, failed. Today, Guaido is sidelined, Venezuelans are suffering more than ever and Maduro remains in power. “I’m here in this presidential palace!” it is noticed.

However, there has been little that is urgently needed to end the most serious humanitarian catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere: commitment – on the part of Maduro, on the part of his opposition, from Washington.

Maduro hopes an agreement to ease sanctions will open the door to foreign investment, create jobs and reduce misery. It could even ensure the legacy of the torchbearer of Chavismo, a unique mark of Venezuela’s left-wing nationalism.

“Venezuela will become a land of opportunity,” he says. “I invite U.S. investors not to be left behind.”

In recent months, Democrats have argued that Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, representative Jim McGovern, and Senator Chris Murphy, among others, should re-examine their policy. Maduro, who rarely leaves Miraflores or a sleeping military base these days, has been waiting for a signal that the Biden administration is ready to negotiate.

“There hasn’t been a single positive sign,” he says. “None.”

It hardly seems like a sudden roundabout. With the broad support of Congress, the Trump administration cited Venezuela for human rights violations, rigged elections, drug trafficking, corruption, and currency manipulation. The punishments he imposed on Maduro, his wife, dozens of civil servants and state-owned companies remain the same. Although Biden’s policy of restoring democracy with “free and fair elections” differs from Trump’s, the U.S. still believes that Guaido is a direct leader in Venezuela.

Maduro has been giving a bit of land. In recent weeks, he has taken six executives — five of them U.S. citizens — from house arrest, given the political opposition two of the five seats on the national election council and allowed the World Food Program to enter the country.

The opposition, while fragmented, is talking about participating in the next round of elections in November. Norway is trying to facilitate talks between the two sides. Henrique Capriles, a key leader who lost to Maduro in the 2013 presidential vote, says it’s time for winner-take-all politics to end.

“There are people on Maduro’s side who also have noticed that the existential conflict isn’t good for their positions, because there’s no way the country is going to recover economically,” he says, taking time out from a visit to the impoverished Valles del Tuy region outside Caracas. “I imagine the government is under heavy internal pressure.”

Venezuela’s economy was already a shambles by the time Maduro took office. His predecessor, Hugo Chavez, overspent wildly and created huge inefficiencies with a byzantine program of price controls, subsidies and the nationalization of hundreds of companies.

“When Chavez came into power, there were four steps you had to take to export a container of chocolate,” Jorge Redmond, chief executive officer of family-run Chocolates El Rey, explains at his sales office in the Caracas neighborhood of La Urbina. “Today there are 90 steps, and there are 19 ministries involved.”

Once the richest country in South America, Venezuela is now among the poorest. Inflation has been running at about 2,300% a year. By some estimates, the economy has shrunk by 80% in nine years — the deepest depression in modern history.

Signs of decay are everywhere. At the foreign ministry in downtown Caracas, most of the lights are turned off and signs on the bathroom doors say, “No Water.” Employees at the central bank bring their own toilet paper.

Throughout the country, blackouts are daily occurrences. In Caracas, the subway barely works and gangs rule the barrios. Some 5.4 million Venezuelans, a fifth of the population, have fled abroad, causing strains across the continent. The border with Colombia is a lawless no-man’s land. Cuba, of all places, has provided humanitarian aid.

Sanctions on Venezuela date back to the presidency of George W. Bush. In 2017, the Trump administration barred access to U.S. financial markets, and it subsequently banned trading in Venezuelan debt and doing business with the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA.

The offensive was brutally effective, accelerating the economic collapse. Last year, Venezuelan oil production slid to 410,000 barrels a day, the lowest in more than a century. According to the government, 99% of the country’s export revenue has been wiped out.

Juan Guaido during a Bloomberg Television interview in Caracas on June 8 [File: Gaby Ora/Bloomberg]

All the while, the Maduro chain was backing down, trying to start negotiations with the US. He sent the foreign minister to the meeting at the Trump Tower in New York and his brother, then communications minister, to Mexico City.

Maduro says he almost had a deal with Trump at the September 2018 United Nations General Assembly. The White House, he recalled, called for agreements to be suspended. Maduro has blamed foreign policy hawks on Trump’s orbit, many of them in the face of Florida’s Venezuelan expulsions.

“The pressures were unbearable for him,” he says. “If we knew each other, history might be different.”

A former bus driver and union leader, Maduro has proven to be a survivor. He defeated his rivals to control the United Socialist Party, after Chavez was assassinated in 2013, suffered attacks in 2018 and 2019, and overcame Trump.

Guaido, who worked closely with the U.S. campaign to oust Maduro, has been forced to move from regime regime change to negotiations.

“I support any effort that provides free and fair elections,” Guaido says at his offices in eastern Caracas, according to unofficial Covid-19 cases and states. “Venezuela is exhausted, not only a democratic alternative, but also a dictatorship, the whole country.”

If Maduro feels hot, he doesn’t show up. Several times a week, often for 90 minutes, he appears on state television to blow up the “economic blockade” and promise to enslave the power of the people. Populist theater takes home a carefully written narrative: Venezuela’s sovereignty, dignity, and right to self-determination are being suppressed as a result of the immoral abuse of financial power.

During the interview, Maduro stressed that he will not claim if the US continues to say it has weapons in its head. Any request for changes in domestic policy has been “completed”.

“We would become a colony, we would become a protectorate,” he says. “No country in the world – no country, let alone Venezuela – is ready to get on its knees and betray its heritage.”

The reality, as all Venezuelans know, is that Maduro is already forced to make big concessions. Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and his adviser, led by former Ecuadorian Economy Minister Patricio Rivera, abolished price controls, reduced subsidies, curtailed imports, allowed bolivars to float freely against the dollar, and created incentives for private investment.

The rural area continues to suffer, but the impact in Caracas has been tremendous. Customers no longer have to pay with piles of tickets and supermarket passages, far from being naked, are often piled up.

Maduro also passed a law full of guarantees for private investors.

Henrique Capriles spoke to residents of the Valles del Tuy region of Venezuela on June 8 [File: Gabriela Ora/Bloomberg]

The reforms are so orthodox that they could be confused with a program to stabilize the International Monetary Fund, almost like the things of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution. Maduro responded that they are tools of the “war economy”. Sure, dollarization has been a “useful escape valve” for consumers and businesses, but the gestures he and capitalism are reluctant to make are temporary.

“Before it is too late, the Bolivar will once again play a strong and dominant role in the economic and commercial life of the country,” he says.

Not so long ago the US saw Venezuela as a strategic ally. Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Chevron Corp. were heavily involved in the country’s oil industry and refurbished the Texas and Louisiana refineries to process the heavy crude Orinoco Belt. Because wealthy Venezuelans traveled to Miami so often, they spoke of it as a second home.

That all changed when Chavez was elected in 1998. He expropriated billions of dollars in U.S. active oil and formed alliances with the Socialists in Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Maduro has gone further, embracing Washington’s most threatening enemies. He said the relationship with Russia was “extraordinary” and sent a birthday card to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden is horrible: Keep abusing Venezuela and you will deal with another Castro, a leader who hopes to reach a no-win deal.

Guests of the VIP lounge at Simon Bolivar International Airport were reminded of Venezuela’s new friendships. The three clocks mounted in a vertical row showed the time in Caracas, Moscow and Beijing.

Asked what they mean in the interview, Maduro replied that “the world of the future is in Asia.” But an idea goes through his mind. Maybe, he says, there should be clocks for New Delhi, Madrid and New York as well.

The next evening, there are six clocks on the wooden wall. In this country, Maduro is still powerful.

Except for one thing: Like so many others in Venezuela, clocks don’t work.