The Biden’s administration overtures to Venezuela and its President Nicholas Maduro seeking more oil production as a means to blunt the impact of increasing gasoline prices amplified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has angered Venezuelan ex-patriots and stumped pundits.
The reaction has been most noticeable in South Florida and has political observers suggesting the move could made the Republican state even more red.
The negotiations have received vocal bipartisan criticism, with Sens. Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), joining other groups strongly opposing negotiations between the Biden Administration and Maduro’s regime.
“If all politics is local, I think there is probably fewer things that President Biden and the Democrats could do to drive South Florida voters into the arms of the Republicans,” Florida International University Professor Dr. Jerry Haar told CBS Miami
With Miami home to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who fled the socialist regimes of Hugo Chavez and Maduro, the fast-growing demographic has planned a protest in Miami on Sunday to voice disapproval of the outreach efforts.
Despite the rising prices, Republicans from Gov. Ron DeSantis to Rubio have sounded the alarm on Biden’s idea.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who represents a district in Miami with a significant Venezuelan population, tweeted, “Biden's team brokering an oil-sale deal with Venezuela is embarrassing. How about we put American oil, American jobs, and the American economy FIRST and we KEEP sanctions on dictators such as Maduro? Everything Biden does is just so backwards.”
But Democrats, too, including Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also have spoken out against negotiating with Maduro for increased oil imports.
Families of Americans imprisoned in Venezuela, however, have urged the Biden Administration to continue negotiations, according to the Miami Herald.
Overwhelmingly though, the negotiations have met with derision and scorn.
Daniel DiMartino, a Venezuelan senior contributor for Young Voices and a Newsmax Insider, told Newsmax Finance that the move is only destined to help Republicans.
“If Biden goes ahead and promises to lift sanctions on the Maduro regime, this will solidify the movement of Venezuelans, by Cubans, by Colombians and South Americans to Republicans,” he said. “It will cost the Democrats the state of Florida for maybe a generation, because we are going to remember who stood for freedom and who stood on the side of Maduro.
“Venezuelans are extremely aware Biden is negotiating with Maduro, but if Biden lifts sanctions on Venezuela, this will be frontpage news in every Hispanic community. That will have a big effect on the midterms and in the presidential election.”
Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican running for Congress in Florida’s 13th District, noted the expats who fled Venezuela did so because of its socialist government.
“Venezuela is a terrible government that is sympathetic to Russia,” she said, adding that the prospect of negotiating with Maduro for oil “is horrifying.”
“People who have experienced socialism are disgusted by this. Buying oil from Venezuela is like sticking a band-aid on a festering wound, it is not going to help.”
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