In Washington, The White House announced on Saturday that two nephews of President Nicolás Maduro's wife who had spent years in prison on drug smuggling convictions had been freed by the United States and that Venezuela had released seven Americans who had been imprisoned in the South American nation.

The Biden administration recently completed its largest exchange of detained individuals, involving five oil executives who had been jailed for over five years.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that "these people will soon be reunited with their families and back in the arms of their loved ones where they belong." The president identified the seven individuals by name and said, "Today, after years of being wrongly incarcerated in Venezuela, we are sending them home." "We rejoice that seven families will be restored to wholeness."

The guys were in stable health, the White House reported, and a variety of support services, including medical attention, had been offered. Biden had spoken with the families.

According to a statement from Maduro's administration, the American citizens were freed as a humanitarian gesture. The two "unjustly imprisoned" Venezuelans who were held in American prisons were released as a consequence of diplomatic efforts, and the statement expressed hope for the continuation of peace and harmony between all the countries in our neighbourhood and around the world.

The oil workers travelled to Venezuela to meet with the government-run oil company.

The prisoners who were released to the US by Venezuela

The exchange represents an extraordinary act of goodwill on Maduro's part as the socialist leader attempts to mend fences with the United States after defeating most of his internal foes. The agreement is the result of months of covert negotiations between Washington's top hostage negotiator and other American officials with a major oil producer. These negotiations gained urgency after sanctions against Russia increased pressure on the price of energy around the world.

The men involved in the operation arrived in different planes, and the transfer took place in a nation shared by the United States and Venezuela, according to the Biden administration.

Five employees of Houston-based Citgo, Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, and Jose Pereira, were among those set free. They had been persuaded to travel to Venezuela just before Thanksgiving of 2017 in order to attend a meeting at the parent company's PDVSA headquarters. When they arrived, masked security personnel broke into a conference room in Caracas and took them away.

When The Associated Press reached Cristina Vadell in Houston, she responded, "I can't believe it." She added while fighting back tears of happiness on her 31st birthday: "The ideal birthday present ever was received. I'm just giddy."

Both Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal from Tennessee who was detained in 2020 at a checkpoint in Venezuela on suspicion of possessing a "specious" weapon, as described by the State Department, and Osman Khan, a Florida resident who was detained in January, were both freed.

The nephews of "First Combatant" Cilia Flores, as Maduro has referred to his wife, Franqui Flores and his cousin Efrain Campo were set free by the United States. In 2015, the men were detained in Haiti as part of a Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation. They were then flown to New York City to stand trial. The following year, they were found guilty in a contentious trial that took a close look at U.S. allegations of narcotics trafficking at the top echelons of Maduro's government.

Prior to their release, Biden granted clemency to both men.

The history of oil between Venezuela and the USA

The United States will once more import oil from Venezuela, according to the Biden Administration, after doing it just once a year for the previous three years.

In reality, in 2021, the United States purchased no oil from Venezuela—the first time in at least 30 years and perhaps even closer to a century. (The U.S. Census Bureau information I use is from 1992.)

In 2011, less than ten years ago, Venezuela was the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States, after Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico.

This ranking in 2021 was Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, and Russia.

Venezuela accounted for more than 10% of all imports into the United States as recently as 2015.

According to Census Bureau data, it was only 0.02% in 2020 when oil imports were limited to the month of June, and 1.08% in 2019, the year that former President Donald Trump initially imposed import restrictions on the Nicholas Maduro administration of Venezuela.

However, the market disruption in the supply of Russian oil is not bound to affect the US that much. Historically if we look at the figures pre-Ukraine-Russia war, the US was not that dependent on Russia for its oil. 

Russia accounted for only a fraction of US imports of crude oil prior to the Ukraine-Russia war

So the prisoner swap might not be an avenue to fill up oil coffers in the absence of Russian supply. It does offer some respite in Venezuela-US relations which have been strained for a long time. 

Would the prisoner swap put the South American country in the good books of the EU? Well, Europe resumed buying oil from Venezuela at about the same time as the US earlier this year. This decision was influenced by the long overdue debt and dividends that were owed by the Maduro-led government. 

This pattern would suggest that the relations between Venezuela and its staunchest adversaries seem to be easing, but it will be a long time before they are back to normal. The OPEC member country is rich in natural resources but has been ravaged by an economic-political crisis that has pushed the country to the brink of collapse. More to follow.

The US-Venezuela prisoner exchange might signal a change of heart

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