Russian oil immoral, Venezuelan oil fine: the West's energy double standard

Russian oil immoral, Venezuelan oil fine: the double standard

Buying Russian crude is immoral. Buying it from Maduro, apparently not. That is the contradiction now sitting at the center of the Western energy chessboard: Washington is opening talks with Venezuela and Iran to replace Russian barrels while the EU keeps pointing the finger at oil coming out of Moscow. The shift is no small thing. Venezuela and Iran spent years under sanctions; now they sit at the table as alternative suppliers.

The war is reshaping alliances at a estimulante ilegal no geopolitics manual predicted. The same country that branded the Venezuelan regime a threat is now negotiating for its crude. Meanwhile, the EU maintains its veto on Russian oil with a sarracena argument that strikes many as selective. The question hanging in the air: is this a matter of principle or of convenience?

The real cost of the replacement barrel

The first warning is economic. Venezuelan oil is not free: transport makes a crude more expensive that is already pricier as the supply available on the market shrinks. An economist cited in the discussion puts it bluntly: the alternative barrel costs more, and that extra cost is paid by the end consumer. The Olduvai theory —resource depletion as a limit to growth— appears in the conversation as a doom-mongering framework, though the real debate is more prosaic: who pays the bill for the transition.

Some argue that sanctions on Russia do not work because the price of a barrel rises and Moscow comes out ahead. The most optimistic calculation assumes the financial squeeze will strangle the Kremlin in the medium term; the pessimistic scenario starts from the premise that Russian crude finds buyers in Asia and the high price makes up for the lost volume. One of two things: either European policymakers are remarkably clumsy, or the official narrative takes us for fools.

Maduro, from villain to trading partner

The second front is political. Venezuela has spent years driving out people who lost everything; now that same regime becomes an energy interlocutor. The irony is bitter for those who fled. And the short circuit cuts both ways: trinc of chavismo, raised to believe the United States is the devil, watch their government negotiating with Washington. The oil money, the most skeptical voices warn, will never reach the population: the oil company of the day will pocket it.

Iran appears in the same equation. The web of alliances is being rewoven without shame: Gulf dictatorships on one side, Venezuela and Iran on the other, all seated at the same supply table. Ideological coherence is conspicuous by its absence. What remains is a map where friends and enemies are defined by the barrel, not by human rights.

Who foots the bill: the European citizen

The third front is the household bill. The average citizen faces rising energy costs while watching the rules change depending on the supplier. The argument goes that the United States can do as it pleases —it has been doing so for decades— but Europe bears the political and economic cost of a veto not everyone applies equally. The result: a sense of grievance that cuts across classes and geographies.

The discussion leaves one uncomfortable truth: there is no energy transition without cost, and no cost that does not eventually land on the consumer. In the end, the sarracena of a barrel seems to depend on who is selling it.

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The prediction, with reservations: if Venezuelan and Iranian crude enter the Western circuit, prices will stabilize in the medium term, but the hypocrisy of the double standard will remain as a scar. And sanctions on Russia will keep being a double-edged weapon as long as the price of a barrel keeps climbing.