Not a surprise.

Obama was palling around with narcomarxist Hugo Chavez and getting book tips from him. He also opened up the door to Cuba and was negotiating with the narcoterrorists of FARC even while their leaders were wanted by the United States. It’s no shock that Biden will get back into bed with Venezuela despite the bankrupt regime’s ties to Iran, its ruthless persecution of its own people, and its drug smuggling operations into America.

The Biden administration said Monday it is offering temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who fled their country’s economic collapse and will review U.S. sanctions intended to isolate the South American nation.

The Trump administration also significantly tightened U.S. economic sanctions on Venezuela, most notably on its crucial oil sector, to try and force President Nicolas Maduro to give up power after an election in 2018 that the United States and more than 50 other countries consider fraudulent.

A senior Biden administration official portrayed that as a failed strategy.

“The United States is in no rush to lift sanctions,” the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the policy. “But we need to recognize here that unilateral sanctions over the last four years have not succeeded in achieving an electoral outcome in the country.”

Sanctions don’t have a great track record. But they’re better than nothing. And after all the verbiage, nothing is what the Biden administration is offering disguised as multilateral arm-waving and pulpit-pounding. 

The problem isn’t just that Maduro is a vicious thug. He’s waging a drug war against America. And winning.

Former President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Moros, Venezuela’s vice president for the economy, Venezuela’s Minister of Defense, and Venezuela’s Chief Supreme Court Justice are among those charged in New York City; Washington, DC; and Miami, along with current and former Venezuelan government officials as well as two Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) leaders, announced U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr,

Since at least 1999, Maduro Moros, Cabello Rondón, Carvajal Barrios and Alcalá Cordones, acted as leaders and managers of the Cártel de Los Soles, or “Cartel of the Suns.”  The Cartel’s name refers to the sun insignias affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials.  Maduro Moros and the other charged Cartel members abused the Venezuelan people and corrupted the legitimate institutions of Venezuela—including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary—to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States.  The Cártel de Los Soles sought to not only enrich its members and enhance their power, but also to “flood” the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in the United States.

Marín Arango and Hernández Solarte are leaders of the FARC.  Beginning in approximately 1999, while the FARC was purporting to negotiate toward peace with the Colombian government, FARC leaders agreed with leaders of the Cártel de Los Soles to relocate some of the FARC’s operations to Venezuela under the protection of the Cartel.  Thereafter, the FARC and the Cártel de Los Soles dispatched processed cocaine from Venezuela to the United States via transshipment points in the Caribbean and Central America, such as Honduras.  

Sanctioning Venezuela isn’t just about removing Maduro from power. Barring major defections within the military, or a successful armed uprising that can take on the military, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. Elections are now meaningless and the narcomarxists have become a junta. 

But aside from the regime’s domestic oppression, its role in the drug trade poses a threat to the United States.

And Biden is signaling that he has no interest in resisting it. And why bother, as Democrats begin legalizing drugs, and investing in the drug business, FARC and Venezuela will become their business partners.