Yesterday I pointed out how the Biden Administration is now talking to the legitimate government of Venezuela, a government that Washington doesn't actually recognize, in order to get their oil flowing again.
Today the spin started.
I'm going to warn you that you'll need your seat belt fastened and maybe a neck brace for this ride. Don't blame me if you get whiplash from the spin.

Meanwhile, back home, the economy has, against all odds, stabilized. After years of heavy-handed government meddling that shrank the oil-rich nation’s GDP to a fraction of what it once was, the socialist leader Nicolas Maduro has carried out a series of free-market reforms that are beginning to fuel growth.
...This was unthinkable back when Rivas left in 2015. A few years later, though, Maduro took one of the single biggest steps in his reform push — adopting the U.S. dollar as the country’s unofficial currency.

There you go! We can talk to Maduro now because he turned away from Socialism and toward capitalism, and thus he's no longer a bad guy.
Simple, right?

There's a couple problems with that. 1) The only reform the article mentions is dollarization, which doesn't mean Maduro turned away from socialism. 2) Maduro adopted the dollar a couple years ago, not a couple months ago. So why was he a bad guy, say, last year? 3) Venezuela was always a mixed economy. It was never really socialist.

Venezuela will never be able to produce enough oil to off-set Russia being embargoed.
At best it would simply off-set the current oil market, before the embargo of Russia.

That's why Biden is also talking to the brutal dictators in UAE and Saudi Arabia. However, the arab nations are different from Venezuela.

The White House unsuccessfully tried to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. was working to build international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices, said Middle East and U.S. officials.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr. Biden in recent weeks, the officials said, as Saudi and Emirati officials have become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the Gulf.

Wow. "The president of the U.S. is on the phone? Take a message."
Who is large and in charge here? Not us.

Finally, Biden has one more card to play regarding oil - Iran.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said that Moscow remains engaged in the effort to salvage the Iran nuclear deal, despite a recent demand by the Russian foreign minister for written guarantees that sanctions imposed for its invasion of Ukraine will not its impact future dealings with Tehran.

Moscow has insisted that Tehran get the deal in writing, and they are right because Republicans have already said that they would tear up the deal should they win on 2024. In fact, Republicans are planning on simply blocking any Iran oil sales forever.