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Venezuelan Interim President says US and Venezuela Governments working to lift US sanctions on Venezuela

Newsquawk Staff ·

Venezuelan Interim President says US and Venezuela Governments working to lift US sanctions on Venezuela.

What it means

Sanctions relief of this kind, where it has occurred, has tended to come in stages rather than wholesale: licences or carve-outs first, broader relief only after verified steps by the sanctioned government. The phrasing here, that the two governments are 'working to' lift sanctions, describes negotiation rather than a decision, and on past occasions such framing has preceded partial, conditional arrangements rather than full removal. The distinction that matters for the transmission is whether any relief touches the oil sector specifically: Venezuelan crude flows, the status of existing specific licences, and the terms under which foreign majors can operate are the live channel into heavy-sour differentials and Gulf Coast refining economics, whereas non-oil measures carry little market content. The track record of this bilateral file is one of reversals, with prior rounds of easing later reimposed when conditions were judged unmet, so headline-driven moves in the associated credits and crude differentials have historically faded when implementation lagged. The tells to observe are any formal Treasury or State Department action, changes to existing licence terms, and whether the opposition and electoral conditions that underpinned earlier relief rounds are being met. Until a licence or executive action exists, this remains rhetoric with precedent for both delivery and disappointment.

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