President JoeBiden’s reported desire to lower gas prices by easing sanctions on Venezuelan strongman maduro_en’s regime drew a stern rebuke from one of Biden's top Senate allies just as U.S. officials moved to ban imports of Russian oil.
“Nicolas Maduro is a cancer to our hemisphere and we should not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said late Monday."As such, I would strongly oppose any action that fills the pockets of regime oligarchs with oil profits while Maduro continues to deprive Venezuelans of basic human rights, freedoms, and even food.
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine under the protection of Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal, which he invoked to deter a Western military effort to protect Ukraine from the Russian onslaught. Biden’s team, taking that nuclear threat seriously, countered by imposing crippling economic sanctions on Russia but hesitated to blackball Russia’s energy exports.
Biden is expected to announce a ban on U.S. imports of Russian oil, which Malinowski said would have mere “symbolic” value in comparison to sanctions that target the global market for Russian energy. The news of Biden’s intention coincided with a new statement from the Republican National Committee that condemned the administration’s energy policies.