Conindustria asks Trump to move forward with the easing of sanctions

The Confederation of Industrialists (Conindustria) of Venezuela asked this Thursday to the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trumpcontinue during his second term, which begins on January 20, with the process of easing sanctions against the country that the North American Executive headed by Joe Biden began.

«What would I like to say (to Trump)? “Not only should the issue of relaxing sanctions be maintained, but it should continue to increase, that is, eliminating more sanctions, because it is what is best for the country,” said the president of Conindustria, Luigi Pisella, at a press conference.

In his opinion, we must “continue to insist” that the policy of sanctions, including against the oil industry, “did not achieve its objective” and, instead, “What he did was harm” Venezuela.

He argued that the measures have been “harmful” and that, with the relief applied by the Biden administration – which has granted licenses to transnational companies – oil production has increased, which reached an average of 989,000 barrels per day (bpd) in October, an increase of 25.8% compared to 786,000 bpd in the same month in 2023, according to official figures.

What will be Trump’s position on sanctions relief for Venezuela?

«For some time now we began to generate an opinion matrix of how harmful the issue of sanctions was and we have to continue with it, because in one way or another everything we do here and everything we express also reaches there in the United States«, expressed Pisella.

He believed that a lifting of sanctions, mainly oil sanctions, would benefit not only Venezuela, which has the largest proven reserves of crude oil, but also other countries, especially in an adverse context due to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Nicolás Maduro sees the Republican’s return to power as “a new beginning” for a win-win relationship between Caracas and Washington, without official bilateral ties since 2019.

Trump, who imposed more than a hundred sanctions on Venezuela during his first presidency (2017-2021), sees the easing of these restrictions as a mistake by the Biden administration, but it is not clear what its position will now be in relation to the country.