Venezuela received $300 million from the sale of crude oil to the U.S. and will use it to prop up the country's currency, bolivar, which has been hit, Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, said.
Ms. Rodriguez said that this amount, from the $500 million sale carried out by Washington, will be used to "stabilize" the foreign exchange market "to protect the income and purchasing power of our workers."
Washington announced last weekend that US President Donald Trump brokered a "historic energy deal" that would "benefit the American and Venezuelan people".
Trump said oil could be sold at market price and that the revenue would be "controlled by me, as President of the United States of America."
Currency has been vital to Venezuela's economy since 2018, when the bolivar became almost useless and the dollar became the country's de facto currency.
Since then, the dollar has coexisted with the bolivar, but the shortage of dollars, caused by the six-year US embargo on Venezuelan oil, has skyrocketed its value.
By intervening in the foreign exchange market, the Venezuelan government aims to gradually reduce the gap between the official exchange rate of the dollar and its exchange rate on the black market, reports the company Ecoanalitica.
Prior to the arrest of longtime leader Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. in a raid on Caracas on Jan. 3, Venezuela had been forced to offer huge discounts on the price of its crude oil to circumvent the U.S. oil embargo.
The largest customer of its crude oil was China.
Washington began curbing those sales last December, seizing tankers carrying sanctioned Venezuelan crude oil.
