Venezuelan opposition calls on US to cancel oil company licenses to pressure Maduro

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Venezuela’s main opposition coalition on Monday called on the U.S. to cancel the licenses that allow Chevron and other energy companies to operate in the South American country to pressure President Nicolás Maduro to negotiate a transition from power.

The appeal came from an adviser to the campaign of Edmundo González Urrutia, who represented the Unitary Platform coalition in the July 28 election, and his main backer, opposition leader María Corina Machado. González and Machado claim their campaign won the vote by a wide margin, contradicting the decision of national electoral authorities to declare Maduro the winner.

“We want them canceled … this is a lifeline to the regime,” adviser Rafael de la Cruz said in reference to the licenses during a panel discussion hosted by the New York-based Council of the Americas business organization. “We want all the oil companies to go to Venezuela. So, it’s not about the companies. It’s about the situation that is impoverishing the country so badly that practically the whole population wants this regime gone.”

California-based Chevron is the largest company to have received an individual permission from the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to do business with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., better known as PDVSA. The Treasury Department sanctioned PDVSA in 2019 as part of a policy punishing Maduro’s government for corrupt, anti-democratic and criminal activities.