Six months ago, high oil prices in America amid Western sanctions against Russian oil and gas sent the Biden administration scrambling for more supply that it could control – and ideally profit from.

Washington couldn’t control Russia and Saudi-led OPEC, or relent on the ideologically-driven anti-Russia sanctions idiocy, but it could at least maybe dial up or down the supply to mitigate the domestic political fallout of any resulting price increases. So the White House considered the cards it could play, and offered Venezuela a deal to lift the American boot off its neck. It’s probably just a coincidence that the country happens to have the largest oil reserves on the planet – and largely untapped.

There’s also the added bonus of rapprochement to counter China and Russia’s advances in Washington’s backyard, or mitigating the influx of migrants from Venezuela to the US as a result of people fleeing a country struggling under a seemingly endless embargo.

So Washington turned to the same Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro whom it indicted on “narcoterrorism” charges in 2020 – the same guy the US spent years delegitimizing by promoting another Venezuelan politician as the “real” president of the country. But instead of black-bagging him to collect the $15 million bounty they’re offering for information leading to his capture or conviction, the Americans made a deal with him.

Thanks to the US, Maduro had a few problems, but maybe those could go away, if he’d be willing to play ball with America on its own terms. American oil giant, Chevron, scored a........

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