Biden on Tuesday announced a US ban on Russian oil and other energy sources, intensifying a pressure campaign on Moscow. Such measures could further increase gasoline prices for US consumers, adding new inflationary pressures.
The engagement with Maduro, a longtime US adversary, was also aimed at assessing whether Venezuela is prepared to distance itself from Russia.
But the Biden administration faced heavy criticism in Congress in Washington for its outreach to Maduro, who is under US sanctions for human rights abuses and political repression.
Sen. Robert Menendez, Biden’s Democratic partner and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the White House not to seek a deal with Venezuela.
Maduro “is a cancer for our hemisphere and we must not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder,” the senator said in a statement.
The United States recognized in 2019 the opposition Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of the country after the re-election of Maduro in 2018, which Western governments described as a farce.
friction point
Cárdenas was one of the six executives of the American Citgo Petroleum, a subsidiary of the Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA, arrested during a business trip to Caracas in 2017.