President Joe Biden's decision to lift sanctions on Venezuela has enabled its President Nicolas Maduro to continue with his anti-democracy moves, including with the country's elections Sunday, according to political analyst Dick Morris.
"Maduro is cheating again," said Morris on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "He's banning rallies. He's trying to discourage people from voting, and he may even do what he's done in the previous elections, which is to rig the count."
Former President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuela to demand democracy, but Biden lifted them, Morris said.
The sanctions dropped Venezuelan oil production from 4 million barrels of oil a day to about a one-half million barrels, causing the country's economic problems, leading to Biden's move to lift the sanctions, he added.
"He alleviated them, and signed a deal saying, 'Oh, you'll give us free elections,'" said Morris. "'You won't cheat, and in return, we'll lift the sanctions.'"
The problem was just like what happened in Afghanistan, where Biden pulled out troops before he had an agreement, said Morris.
Meanwhile, Sunday's election is "very consequential to the United States," said Morris. "There are 560,000 Venezuelan refugees in the United States now, and there are 10 million Venezuelan refugees throughout the world.
"Half the country has fled. Many of those are going to end up on our doorstep. So this is also a U.S. domestic issue as to whether the flood of immigrants and refugees continues to pour into the United States."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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