Relations between the two countries have long been tense. Now, however, the US and Venezuela are swapping captured citizens. Seven Americans are released as well as two Venezuelans - they are said to be Maduro's nephews.
Seven US citizens have been released in exchange for two Venezuelans in a prisoner swap between the US and Venezuela. The seven US citizens would now be brought "home after years of unlawful detention," said US President Joe Biden in a statement from the White House in Washington on Saturday (local time). Washington and Caracas announced the exchange in two nearly simultaneous statements.
Five of the seven released US citizens were executives of the oil company Citgo. They were arrested in 2017 during a business trip to the South American country and accused of corruption. The other two US citizens were arrested separately.
Caracas did not name those released, but a senior US official identified them as the nephews of President Nicolas Maduro's wife. The two men were arrested in Haiti and then taken to New York, where they were sentenced to 18 years in prison on drug-related charges.
The release of the two men, sometimes referred to as "narco-nephews" because of their relationship with Nicolas Maduro's wife, was "vital" in the release of these Americans, the US official told journalists.
Relations between the two countries have been strained for years. The US is among some 60 countries that refused to recognize Maduro as the legitimately elected president after the disputed 2018 election.
But recently there had been increased diplomatic efforts behind the scenes with the Latin American country - also because of the pressure on global energy supplies as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. In view of the energy crisis, Venezuela's socialist leader Nicolás Maduro has brought his country into play as a global supplier of oil and gas.
Oil is an enormously important source of income for Venezuela. The US hit the country with a series of sanctions after Maduro's re-election in 2018. A punitive measure imposed in 2019 bans Venezuela from trading in crude oil in the US market. In May, however, the government announced that it would relax some of the sanctions in view of rising energy prices due to the Ukraine war.
