Chevron Allowed To Resume Operations In Venezuela Days After Release Of American Detainees

The Trump administration has allowed Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela, according to different reports.

Bloomberg detailed on Thursday that there were no immediate details of the decision, but noted that the development takes place just days after an agreement that saw the release of 10 American detainees in the South American country and the return of some 250 Venezuelans held in El Salvador's infamous CECOT mega-prison.

"Chevron conducts its business globally in compliance with laws and regulations applicable to its business, as well as the sanctions frameworks provided for by the U.S. government, including in Venezuela," said Chevron spokesman Bill Turenne in a statement. The White House didn't immediately comment on the matter.

Chevron's oil operations, protected by a Treasury Department exemption despite sanctions, provide about 20% of Venezuela's total output and serve as a key economic channel for the country.

The U.S. Treasury Department had set April 3 as the deadline for Chevron to end its operations in the country, but extended the date to May 27 to give the oil company more time. Bloomberg reported in May that the license would be extended for another 60 days. Now it appears that it has been expanded further.

The recent agreement saw the return of some 250 Venezuelans who had been deported from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a rarely employed wartime law. Upon their return to their home country, Venezuela's minister of the interior, justice and peace, Diosdado Cabello, said the government there would continue to try to bring home Venezuelans imprisoned in the U.S. and El Salvador.

"We will keep demanding the return of all the Venezuelans kidnapped by the government of the United States, kidnapped by the government of El Salvador," Cabello said in televised remarks. "All of them, we demand that they return them to our country. To their home country."

Detainees have begun detailing the horrors they endured in the prison. Julio Gonzalez Jr., a 36-year-old Venezuelan who was an office cleaner and house painter in Texas, said that when he agreed to be deported back in March he assumed he would be taken back to his home country. Instead, the plane landed in El Salvador.

When his plane landed in the Central American country, Gonzalez and two other detainees told The Washington Post that they were yanked by their feet, beaten and shoved off board as the plane's crew began to cry. Dozens of migrants were forced onto a bus and driven to a massive gray complex. They were ordered to kneel there with their foreheads pressed against the ground as guards pointed guns at them.

Gonzalez was held at CECOT for four months. He recounts that not only was he beaten with wooden bats, but was also robbed of thousands of dollars and denied access to lawyers or a chance to call his family.

"I practically felt like an animal," Gonzalez said by telephone from his parents' home. "The officials treated us like we were the most dangerous criminals on Earth... They shaved our heads, they would insult us, they would take us around like dogs."