Biden would be wrong to support the tyrant in Venezuela to fight the tyrant in Russia | Opinion

If the Biden administration agrees to weaken sanctions against the murderous and anti-American Maduro dictatorship, it would shamelessly betray the Venezuelan people and the cause of freedom, as well as the national security interests of the United States. Instead, the United States must pursue a policy that puts American values first, rather than trading one type of blood oil for another.

I am deeply alarmed by reports that high-level U.S. representatives met in person, in secret, with Maduro and his cronies in an attempt to reduce sanctions at a time when the Biden administration is seeking new petroleum resources from anywhere but home. If true, it appears that the administration might be ready to appease one ruthless dictator in hopes that the next one might be slightly less reprehensible, or dangerous, than the other.

It is crucial that the Biden administration maintain tough sanctions on the Maduro regime. Congress provided the president with significant authorities to sanction that regime through tough statutes, including the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act, which I supported. Tough sanctions are essential to prevent U.S. dollars from enriching the Venezuelan people’s oppressors.

The United States must stand with the Venezuelan people through robust democracy assistance and humane policies. For this reason, I have long supported humanitarian assistance for Venezuelans, particularly those who have suffered, and continue to suffer the consequences of the Maduro regime. From FY2017 to FY2021, the United States provided $1.65 billion in humanitarian aid to Venezuelans, and $323 million for democracy, development and healthcare. For FY2022, the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs bill, passed by the House, provides $50 million in democracy assistance to Venezuela. And, to ensure that Venezuelans may remain in the United States lawfully and without fear of deportation, my colleague Rep. Darren Soto and I introduced the Venezuela TPS Act in the 116th and 117th congresses.

President Biden should learn from Europe’s mistaken dependence on Russian oil and refuse to leap into a worse deal with the brutal Maduro dictatorship, a regime being investigated by the International Criminal Court and a U.N. International Fact-Finding Mission for crimes against humanity. We must remember that, with the influx of oil cash into Putin’s coffers, he was able to declare war on his neighbors, pump military equipment and soldiers into Venezuela, forgive Cuban debt and send espionage ships into Cuban waters to spy on the United States.

Similarly, when the Venezuelan dictatorship was flush with cash, it assisted the Marxist terrorists of the FARC in destabilizing Colombia, engaged in trafficking of Cuban doctors and brutally oppressed the Venezuelan people. Russia has sent billions in military equipment, and has shipped military “advisors,” to help Maduro cling to power.

Iran continues to ship food and oil to sustain the Maduro regime. We must not toss it a lifeline in order to tighten the screws on another brutal dictator. The American people understand that supporting any part of their increasingly intertwined, malign alliance supports them all.

I challenge anyone to decipher a consistent foreign policy of the Biden administration, unless it is a policy that prefers to enrich ruthless dictators over domestic energy sources. Just like the disastrous Iran deal from the Obama administration, the Venezuela and current Iran negotiations are held in secret because they are immensely unpopular. In fact, they are an embarrassment. Yet incomprehensibly, the Biden administration is nonetheless negotiating deals with them.

With the power the world has given him, Putin has weaponized energy, and now Western nations are attempting to disentangle themselves from the web they helped weave. Let’s not put ourselves in that position with Iran and Venezuela.

We must pursue a policy of ironclad sanctions that prioritizes U.S. national security interests, human rights and freedom, rather than securing a bad deal with a different devil.

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart represents Florida’s 25th congressional district in the U.S. House.

This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 2:52 PM.