The Possible Return of PetroCaribe as CARICOM Seeks Venezuela’s Support

The Briceño administration, through its CARICOM counterparts, is once again looking to Venezuela for oil relief. A decision was taken at the forty-third Regular Session of the Heads of Government of CARICOM to restart the PetroCaribe program with Venezuela. The U.S., itself, is in talks with Venezuela which has reportedly resulted in the Biden administration easing restrictions on Venezuelan oil over the last couple of months. According to P.M. Briceño this was one of the topics CARICOM Heads discussed with President Biden at the recent Summit of the Americas.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“The good news is that we have been talking through CARICOM to Venezuela and to the United States about asking the United States to ease up some of the restrictions with Venezuela and that we may have an opportunity to get the Petro-Caribe program going once again. Maybe it might not be as generous as it was before, but we are still looking at maybe paying seventy cents on the dollar or something like that, but that itself is going to be a big help, should we be able to convince the Americans to ease up on the restrictions they have on Venezuela. We brought it up when we met with President Joe Bidden and Vice President Harris at the Summit of the Americas. That is one of the topics we believed that indeed they should ease up the restrictions and also allow Trinidad and Tobago to be able to work with Venezuela, because they have large fields of natural gas. Because of the sanctions against Venezuela, Trinidad is not able to access that natural gas.”