Andrew Rosati, Bloomberg News

RIO
EnergyNet.com 07 26 2024

Venezuela’s autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro, is facing the biggest electoral threat of his 11-year rule on Sunday. If he comes out on top, he’ll find it challenging to convince the world his victory was legitimate.

Election after election, Maduro, 61, has managed to defy the polls by dampening voter enthusiasm and tilting the ballot box in his favor. This time around, however, the stakes are higher for his battered nation.

Millions of Venezuelans have unexpectedly rallied behind the main challenger, Edmundo González, who until April was a 74-year-old little-known former diplomat.

Output is slowly rebounding after plunging to 360,000 barrels per day in 2020https://www.bloomberg.com/toaster/v2/charts/ot2rj99wkqwajb3ohfke36zh24ay42hn.html?brand=politics&webTheme=politics&web=true&hideTitles=true

Source: US Department of Energy, Baker Hughes, Bloomberg

US President Joe Biden’s administration briefly lifted sweeping financial sanctions — imposed on the ruling socialists for past electoral abuses and repression — in exchange for holding a clean and fair vote.

That respite gave a boost to a slow-moving recovery taking place as Maduro ditches state controls for private business. Now, whether or not Venezuela will have to endure more pain could largely depend how foreign powers view the balloting.

The initial signs have not been encouraging. In April, the White House snapped back sanctions, effectively banning Venezuelan oil imports to the US — its biggest customer — after the ruling party kept the most popular opposition figure, María Corina Machado, out of the race.

But for now Washington has allowed oil majors, such as Chevron, to keep pumping Venezuelan crude. Meanwhile, backed by Machado, a 56-year-old fiery former congresswoman, González has managed to hold opposition forces together against Maduro.

How the president responds to his opponents after the votes are counted may well determine how much oil — Venezuela’s lifeblood — flows in the months to come.

Global Must Reads

While Russian President Vladimir Putin is bucking Western efforts to isolate him internationally, new US restrictions are hurting businesses. Local banks in countries that trade with Russia are at a higher risk of so-called secondary penalties, increasingly delaying or disrupting payments to and from places such as China and Turkey. That’s making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to execute transactions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a fiery defense of his nation’s war against Hamas in a speech to the US Congress, inserting himself into a super-charged moment in American politics and mocking thousands of demonstrators outside protesting his handling of the conflict in Gaza. He urged Washington to fast-track military aid and dismissed concerns about the war’s mounting civilian death toll, saying his troops should be commended for their actions.

Biden framed his decision to drop out of the US presidential race as a bid to unify the nation under a new generation of leaders, in his first speech since ending his reelection campaign and political career. The president sought to define his legacy with an 11-minute Oval Office address yesterday — one that he has staked on defending American institutions from Republican Donald Trump.

A “sensationally unpredictable” US political environment is clouding the outlook for economic policy in 2025 and beyond, analysts say. The wave of enthusiasm over Vice President Kamala Harris, the expected Democratic presidential candidate, means economists and investors are now scouring her record for clues about her agenda.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a beating in recent European Union parliamentary elections, and his ruling coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party is wobbly at best. And yet, the Social Democrat leader vowed at a wide-ranging summer news conference that he would seek a second term in national elections next year.

Democrats will nominate Harris as their candidate for president through a virtual roll call by Aug. 7.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will announce a new cabinet Sunday following the retirement of two senior ministers.

Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai will take the stand to defend himself after a court dismissed his bid to quash national security charges that could see the 76-year-old locked up for life.

Washington Dispatch

Trump began his rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, last night with an immediate denunciation of Harris, attempting to depict his new Democratic opponent as a California leftist on the wrong side of issues including crime.

The former president, however, also raised a topic he has largely avoided on the campaign trail — abortion. “When you compare my position on abortion to that of Kamala Harris, my position is eight points higher in the polls,” Trump said, without specifying the basis for that assertion.

Republicans have often found themselves on the losing side of the abortion debate since the US Supreme Court struck down the Roe v. Wade decision in 2022. At the same time, Trump has irritated some conservative religious supporters who want a federal ban on the procedure. He says the question should be left up to the states.

Harris has been an unapologetic advocate regarding abortion access, and reproductive rights are likely to play a central role in her campaign.

One thing to watch today: US economic growth for the second quarter will be reported by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Global finance leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro are poised to set limits on Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s call for a global tax on billionaires, consigning the initiative to research on taxation and inequality that could take years to deliver results. The idea has split the G-20 and the Group of Seven, with France’s vocal backing running into a swift rejection from other developed countries, led by the US.

And Finally

One of the biggest challenges for the world’s best athletes in the Summer Olympic Games in Paris will be how to perform at their best in increasingly unbearable heat. For elite athletes discomfort is a normal part of competition, but thousands of contenders may struggle. The once-temperate French capital has warmed 1.8C since it last hosted the event in 1924. Wearable heat sensors and inflatable ice pools are now part of the high-tech tool kit to cope with the extreme weather.

— With assistance from Prinesha Naidoo, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Karl Maier, John Harney, and Anthony Halpin

bloomberg.com 07 25 2024