Since 2006, the United States has imposed a wide variety of sanctions on Venezuela. Among other aims, these prevent the Venezuelan government from accessing the U.S. financial system, freeze the bank accounts of the Maduro administration and block oil imports from the state oil and gas company. In 2017, Donald Trump tightened the sanctions with the aim of ousting Maduro in favour of an interim opposition government led by Juan Guaidó.
Recently, Joe Biden took limited steps towards lifting sanctions on Venezuela, including allowing very limited natural resource extraction operations in Venezuela by the U.S. firm Chevron. The vast majority of US sanctions remain in place.