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Notes -
What exactly is going on in Venezuela and why does it mean there were police barricades in my neighborhood last night preventing me from driving home?
They had an election. Officially, Maduro (the socialist encumbrant) won. Unofficially, it's sketchy even by the standards of Venezuelan elections (Jimmy Carter's seal of approval twenty-five years ago!), with a massive swing from recent polling, bans on political candidates, Maduro claiming a massive foreign cyberattack (echoing 2019 claims after that mess), so on. Add in background of the oil stuff and a broad ban on firearms mostly unenforced against Maduro's supporters, and there's a lot of room for things to get Messy.
((In theory, if any irregularities could be proven, it would be a major embarrassment for the Biden administration, since they removed a lot of sanctions on Venezuela's oil exports on the basis of free and fair elections. But I don't think anyone who cares will hear about it, and the [agreement officially had collapsed in April anyway.))
No idea where you live, so can't say on police barricades.
EDIT: some alleged but hilarious return numbers.
EDIT2: the Maduro government is announcing prosecution of said banned political candidate, among others..
I'll just note that some of the reasons you won't hear much about it is that the elections-for-sanctions had at least three... let's not call them ulterior motives, but ancilliary benefits.
One was that it allowed the US a face-saving way to readjust the sanctions-format between what was originally there and what has/will snap back. Even on its own terms, not all sanctions (including energy) worked as desired, and so while fundamentals are shared, not all the technicalities will be the same.
This, in turn, gave a second benefit, which was a diplomatic bone to US allies struggling with high energy/oil prices. While Venezuela isn't so much a gas producer, and its oil market contributions aren't market-shaping, there are a lot of regional and global countries- especially US European and Asian partners- for whom any energy relief matters more than Latin American politics. Letting themselves get 'persuaded' into sanctions relaxation in turn gives that little bit of 'I'm reasonable' trading card in the conduct of other relations for those who care more about the energy econ dynamics than the US. This means that those countries who appreciated the energy boost are much, much less likely to criticize the decision.
Third, this was also a... not a trade, but a card with Brazil in particular, especially after the role the US played in the Venezuela-Guyana Essequibo dispute over the winter. While the elections deal was announced in October 23, and thus negotiated before the crisis began to rise in visibility also in October, one of the major regional proponents was Brazil, where Lula has mixed feelings (sympathetic but only so far) for Venezuela, especially vis-a-vis the US sanctions. Agreeing to the sanctions relaxation was a Brazilian 'win' that demonstrated Lula's regional influence and the US's responsiveness to/respect for Brazilian efforts- even as the sanctions jump-back meant that the Brazilians lost grounds to critique a deal they supported when the Venezuelans broke it. Further, in that interim the US's earned political favors could be leveraged to... not pacify, but mitigate some of the potential pushback when the US fully backed Guyana in Venezuela's late-year pressure campaign. This let the US do something Brazil might have pushed back more directly, the military relationshp building in northern S. America, as the US both was (technically) on the same side of Brazil in opposing the border pressure, and had proved it's 'reasonableness' by maintain the same sanctions relief.
By making a concession that would be only temporary if Venezuela broke the general spirit, the Biden administration largely set up a win-win. If Venezuela went along with an election it didn't control all the processes of (which was a possibility in the pre-deal context), it would likely lose (as it did) due to the uncontrolled polling-exposure effect, and that would be a US win in and of itself. But even if it renenged (as it did at the very end), Venezuela going along with an election but renenging on the free or fair parts legitimaized a number of US policy positions, increased US access to the region, and diplomatically separated Venezuela from its more conditional regional supporters.
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