Florida Republicans were quick to pile on the Biden administration over talks with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to potentially ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports.

By Monday, top Democrats in the state also jumped into the fray, expressing in a more measured way their serious concerns over President Joe Biden’s engagement with the South American authoritarian regime.

And that was before the White House made any actual decisions or deals.

The strong and immediate reactions provide a window into the political radioactivity of the issue in the nation’s third-most populous state, where both parties recognize that U.S. policy toward Venezuela and other socialist regimes in the region also reverberates across Florida politics.