I 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 7207 
To prohibit the importation of petroleum products from Venezuela, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 24, 2022 
Mr. DONALDS (for himself, Mr. WEBER of Texas, Mr. GIBBS, and Mr. DIAZ- 
BALART) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Ways and Means, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To prohibit the importation of petroleum products from 
Venezuela, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Prohibit Venezuelan 
Oil Importation Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
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(1) From 1959 to 1999, Venezuela, officially 
known as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, had 
a form of government that embraced democratic 
principles. 
(2) In 1999, Hugo Cha´vez was elected as the 
President of Venezuela, where he maintained power 
by redistributing the country’s vast oil reserves to-
wards social welfare programs, suppressing dissent 
and independent media, and corrupting Venezuela’s 
democratic institutions, while simultaneously nation-
alizing the country’s private businesses, which he did 
so until his death on March 5, 2013. 
(3) On April 24, 2013, Nicola´s Maduro became 
President of Venezuela, notwithstanding multiple 
claims of election fraud and constitutional violations 
against Maduro. 
(4) During this time, Venezuela’s economy had 
become strongly dependent on the exportation of oil, 
with crude accounting for 86 percent of its exports. 
(5) However, in 2014, Venezuela entered into 
an economic recession, which led to the Venezuelan 
regime’s partnership with Petro´leos de Venezuela, 
S.A. (PDVSA), a state oil company, to combat the 
highly fluctuating price of oil in Venezuela along 
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with the country’s overall steep decrease in oil pro-
duction. 
(6) In 2015, Venezuela’s economic struggles 
continued, with Venezuela having the world’s highest 
rate of inflation that surpassed 100 percent, result-
ing from the Maduro regime’s socialist economic pol-
icy that ultimately redistributed the oil-generated 
wealth to Venezuela’s oligarchs. 
(7) In January 2016, Maduro declared an ‘‘eco-
nomic emergency’’ due to the country’s inability to 
provide for basic human needs to its citizens, leading 
to riots in the streets of Venezuela. 
(8) In 2017, Maduro announced that leading 
opposition parties would be barred from taking part 
in the country’s Presidential election, which led the 
United States and other countries formally recog-
nizing Juan Guaido´ as the President of Venezuela, 
although countries such as China, Russia, Cuba, and 
Iran still continued to recognize President Nicola´s 
Maduro. 
(9) In August 2019, President Donald Trump 
signed an Executive order to impose tough sanctions 
against Maduro’s totalitarian regime. 
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
gress that Congress— 
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