After insisting for a long time with sanctions, reproaches and extreme pressure, the United States began to relax its policy towards two of its biggest Latin American antagonists: Cuba and Venezuela.
Washington announced by separated this week that would ease its restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, as well as for the negotiations of the main US oil company in Venezuela.
The measures are limited and are far from assume a normalization of relations between the US and the governments of both countries.
But the turn that Joe Biden’s White House seeks to give to the heavy-handed strategy designed by former President Donald Trump for those countries is evident.
And behind this change there are several reasons , according to experts.
A controversial summit
The Washington announcements came as the Biden administration is preparing to organize the ninth Summit of the s Americas next month in Los Angeles.
The prelude to the conclave is marked by struggles and a risk of boycott by some presidents due to the probable exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, countries that the US has suggested it would leave out as autocratic.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has conditioned his attendance at the meeting to the participation of these three nations, a position that was also assumed by his Bolivian counterpart, Luis Arce.
Other Latin American leaders who plan to attend the summit also asked that all the countries of the region be invited.
USA has responded that he still has to make the final decision about the guests and opened a dialogue with López Obrador about his claim.
In the Biden government they deny that this controversy over the summit has any relation to the changes of policy towards Cuba and Venezuela.
“The timing of this would say that it is completely separate from what the Mexican president has said regarding Cuba ”, a senior US official said when explaining to journalists on Tuesday the relief of sanctions against Venezuela.
The official said that the measures, which include a “limited” authorization for the US oil company Chevron to negotiate possible future activities with Venezuela, seek to support a restart of dialogue between the government of Nicolás Maduro and his opponents.
He also pointed out that the Biden administration had spent months preparing its new policy towards Cuba, which authorizes flights trade to cities on the island beyond Havana and suspends the US$1 limit.10 per quarter to remittances.
However, some analysts observe a link clear between these changes and the region’s criticism of the Summit of the Americas to be held from 6 to 10 of June.
“It is a sign that the Biden administration does not want to reach the summit empty-handed,” says Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, an independent think tank in Washington, to BBC World.
And adds that the objective of the White House is to show differences with the Trump government in the policies on Cuba, Venezuela and migration, in the midst of the doubts about the commitments that will be achieved at the summit.
In fact, many anticipated that Biden would ease the restrictions imposed by Trump on Cuba and Venezuela shortly after taking office in January 2020, but different reasons delayed the change.
“The obvious country”
Despite the slackening of the restrictions on Cuba and Venezuela, analysts consider unlikely that Biden will finally invite both countries to the conclave in Los Angeles.
This also weighs domestic political reasons: the presence of Cuban or Venezuelan authorities in the US would cause internal rejection months before the mid-term elections in November.
The changes announced this week by Washington were criticized not only by Republican opponents, but also by Democrats such as Bob Menéndez, who chairs the powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Giving Maduro a handful of undeserved gifts just so that his regime promises to sit down to negotiate is a strategy aimed at failure,” Menéndez said in a statement.
The senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition that his name be withheld denied that the Chevron permit would result in an increase of profits for the Maduro government, which is still under sanctions from Washington.
He also warned that the US could further increase or ease sanctions to Venezuela depending on what happens in the dialogue between the Maduro government and its opponents.
And pointed out that Washington’s goal is to make progress toward free and fair elections in Venezuela, denying that the f little is in oil.
But some foresee a higher revenue for the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA after this announcement.
“Sooner or later, Chevron will explore oil and PDVSA will benefit from it,” Ryan Berg, researcher for Latin America at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a bipartisan organization in Washington, tells BBC Brazil.
Others believe that the US sees in Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world, an opportunity to lower the price of oil, which soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
In March, while the US was promoting sanctions on Russian oil, Biden’s envoys unexpectedly traveled to Venezuela to talk privately with Maduro, a Moscow ally who said he was willing to increase oil production.
Venezuela freed two American prisoners after that meeting, which also generated criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Washington.
Now the idea is gaining strength for some that the conflict between the West and Russia has also moved US policy towards Venezuela.
“The visit in March (to Maduro) was part of a global look at how to replace Russia’s oil to the world with production in other places”, says Arnson. “And in Latin America, the obvious country is Venezuela.”
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate it so you don’t miss our best content.
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!