Venezuela’s Maduro expresses desire for foreign aid, Biden deal | Al Jazeera

Seated on a gilded Louis XVI chair in his office at Miraflores, a sprawling, neo-Baroque palace in northwest Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro projects unflappable confidence.

The country, he says in an 85-minute interview with Bloomberg Television, has broken free of “irrational, extremist, cruel” U.S. oppression. Russia, China, Iran and Cuba are allies, his domestic opposition is impotent. If Venezuela suffers from a bad image, it’s because of a well-funded campaign to demonize him and his socialist government.

The bombast is predictable. But in between his denunciations of Yankee imperialism, Maduro, who’s been allowing dollars to circulate and private enterprise to flourish, is making a public plea and aiming it directly at Joe Biden. The message: It’s time for a deal.

Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is starved for capital and desperate to regain access to global debt and commodity markets after two decades of anti-capitalist transformation and four years of crippling U.S. sanctions. The country is in default, its infrastructure crumbling and life for millions a struggle for survival.

“If Venezuela can’t produce oil and sell it, can’t produce and sell its gold, can’t produce and sell its bauxite, can’t produce iron, etcetera, and can’t earn revenue in the international market, how is it supposed to pay the holders of Venezuelan bonds?” Maduro, 58, says, his palms upturned in appeal. “This world has to change. This situation has to change.”

In fact, much has changed since Donald Trump put the sanctions on Caracas and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as president. His explicit goal, to drive Maduro from office, failed. Today, Guaido is marginalized, Venezuelans are suffering more than ever and Maduro remains firmly in power. “I’m here in this presidential palace!” he notes.

There has, however, been little of the one thing urgently needed to end the Western Hemisphere’s worst humanitarian disaster: compromise — from Maduro, from his opposition, from Washington.

Maduro hopes a deal to relieve the sanctions will open the floodgates to foreign investment, create jobs and reduce misery. It might even assure his legacy as the torchbearer of Chavismo, Venezuela’s peculiar brand of left-wing nationalism.

“Venezuela is going to become the land of opportunities,” he says. “I’m inviting U.S. investors so they don’t get left behind.”

Over the past few months, Democrats including Gregory Meeks, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Representative Jim McGovern and Senator Chris Murphy, have argued that the U.S. should reconsider its policy. Maduro, who these days rarely leaves Miraflores or the military base where he sleeps, has been waiting for a sign that the Biden administration is ready to negotiate.

“There hasn’t been a single positive sign,” he says. “None.”....Al Jazeera