In May of 2018, Nicolas Maduro was re-elected for another term as Venezuela’s president and sworn into power on January 10th 2019. This second term will continue to 2025. However, foreign powers such as the European Union, United States, and the Lima Group have denounced Maduro as Venezuela’s president. In the months following Maduro’s “election,” Juan Guaido, representative of the National Assembly declared himself interim president with the recognition of European nations such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Estonia as well as the United States and Canada.
Despite disapproval from the United Nations and the Red Cross, the United States continues to attempt to aid Venezuela. The sustained intervention of the United States in Venezuela’s crisis has only grown the borderline civil war between Maduro and Guaido and ultimately will hurt the country more than help it. Venezuela must solve this crisis on their own.
To understand the dire political situation Venezuela finds itself in today, it is worth evaluating the economic collapse from recent decades as the result of their reliance on oil, otherwise known as a petro-state. A petro-state is categorized as a government that heavily relies on the export of oil and natural gas, with economic and political power highly concentrated in an elite minority, and a weak, unchecked, political system with extensive corruption. Even though Venezuela’s most profitable resource, oil, was discovered in the 1920s, it is still the country’s most heavily relied upon resource. But when oil prices fell “from more than $100 per barrel in 2014 to a low of under $30 per barrel in early 2016,” it became clear that the Venezuelan government under Maduro had failed to prepare for such fluctuation.
There wasn’t one specific problem that led Venezuela to this state of disparity. The amalgamation of predictable financial problems ignored by the Venezuelan government brought them to this debilitating humanitarian crisis. As Venezuela’s number one economic resource, the production of oil has decreased steadily since its discovery, attaining its’ lowest in 2018. Seeing as the government relies on oil for 98% of its export earnings and 50% of its gross domestic product, the GDP shrunk by double digits for a third consecutive year.
Venezuela is in staggering debt because of this economic downfall. In fact, the Bolivar, Venezuela’s currency, has an annual inflation rate of more than 80,000%. Necessities like food or medical care are completely unaffordable to the average Venezuelan citizen. The sustained dependence on the volatile oil industry and its ever-fluctuating prices continues to bring this nation to the pits of poverty despite decades of this same pattern occurring with seemingly no attempted change from government officials. These financial losses are extreme, but United States interference brought Venezuela to its knees.
One of the largest contributing factors to Venezuela’s economic crisis as it currently stands is the sanctions set by the Trump administration to oust Nicolas Maduro from power. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the sanctions set on the Venezuelan regime in 2017 meant “all assets of these individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction are frozen, and U.S. persons are prohibited from dealing with them.” Under these sanctions CITGO, a state-owned company who averaged around $1 billion USD every year since 2015, cannot refer any revenues and shares back to Venezuela as CITGO is in Texas. Additionally, New York state law governs all of Venezuela’s foreign currency bonds. The resulted loss in 2017 was staggering, the contrast in income using data from the 12 months before sanctions totals at about $6 billion.
This example represents just one of many sanctions. America’s attempts to control Maduro and remove him from power have only cost Venezuelans any chance at comfortable living as Maduro gives no indication that he will yield. Maduro blames the United States for the perceived “economic war” waged on Venezuelans through Trump’s numerous sanctions. Maduro continues to blame his economic problems on the United States without acknowledging his reliance on socialism within a failed petro-state. Meanwhile, the U.S. is meddling in the country’s affairs in a largely counterproductive manner. These sanctions are only worsening the economic and political situation in Venezuela as Maduro stays in power.
The United States also fails to recognize that Venezuela has been stuck in their reliance on oil for a long time, and that ideology has been passed down. Mismanagement of oil profits can be traced back to nearly 40-50 years ago, but it is important to note that in recent decades, Nicolas Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez set him up to lose, ultimately making the country an example of a failed petro-state and socialism. When Chavez fired thousands of skilled workers in the state-owned company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A or PDVSA during an industry strike in 2002 and 2003, he eradicated Venezuela’s overseeing experts in exploration, production and exportation of oil. Because of this and the consequential unchecked subsidizing of oil to other countries in the region, government debt doubled under Chavez’s presidency.
Even as oil production declined in the years preceding Chavez’s death, the height of oil production taking place in the late 1990s to early 2000s, Chavez continued to fund social programs to provide more care for impoverished citizens. The idea of using the country’s most profitable resource to in turn offer social services is noble. Still, the failure to acknowledge the volatile rise and fall of oil prices brought Venezuela to more poverty. Any governmental structure, including socialism, cannot thrive under a fluctuating petro-state if the structure has not been established first. Ultimately, Chavez brought on more poverty to his citizens by building so much of their infrastructure around one vital source. Rather than evaluate Venezuela’s economic structure, Maduro followed in the footsteps of his predecessor and in turn he watched the downfall of his country before his very eyes.
Some would argue that shifting the blame to Chavez and Maduro is ignorant considering that the Venezuelan government mismanaged its oil dating as far back as the 1970s. During the embargo on countries backing the Yom-Kippur war, oil prices quadrupled and over the following few years the economic boom added 10 million dollars to state coffers, giving way to mismanagement. Analysts estimate that as much as $100 billion was embezzled between 1972 and 1997 alone. When global oil prices drastically fell in the 1980s, inflation climbed, and Perez hurriedly enacted a financial bailout from the International Monetary Fund. At that point the national debt in Venezuela was already in a dire place. The Venezuelan government was unpoliced in their appropriation of funds and the monetary loss was monumental.
Nevertheless, because of Chavez’s socialist policies, he still heavily relied on the unstable oil economy to back social services and cut poverty. This was a temporary band-aid on the continuation of the failed petro-state. A government cannot promise protection from poverty if their largest source of revenue is as unstable as the oil industry. If Chavez or Maduro opened their economy to free market ideas and lessened their reliance on petroleum, their economy would’ve had the room it needed to prepare for the fluctuation of petroleum prices. Unfortunately, Venezuelan leaders continue to cling tightly to their strongarm socialist policies and because of this, their people are dying.
As I mentioned earlier, Nicolas Maduro is receiving pressure from strong international powers worldwide to resign. While Maduro has the support of his military forces as well as autocratic nations such as Mexico, Cuba, Russia, China, and Turkey, he is rejected as president by The United States, Canada, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Spain, France, The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and other nations of the European Union. The nations standing against Venezuela cite reports of coercion, fraud, and electoral rigging.
In 2017, Maduro jailed two opposition leaders for “making political statements and speaking to the media.” The pro-government Venezuelan supreme court also claimed the politicians imprisoned, Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledzema, were planning to leave the country. However, many criticizers of Maduro’s government claim it was simply a way to protect Maduro’s chances to win the presidency. To say Maduro operates under democracy because an election was held is misinformed and ridiculous.
While he was wrongfully jailing his criticizers, Maduro encouraged votes for his reelection by tracking his voters through their national benefits card and promised government subsidized food handouts. Food in Venezuela otherwise is an increasingly rare resource, and over 60% of Venezuelans reported involuntary weight loss. Maduro won the election with 68% of the vote, but countries opposing Maduro claim that he won his election through exerting his power over the people. Venezuelan civilians’ choice was to either vote for Maduro or starve to death. Make no mistake, these people are living under and apathetic-at-best dictator. Opposing countries are urging Maduro to step down and allow Juan Guaido to intervene as interim president although they provide little to no consequences.
The United States is the exception. President Donald Trump and his administration have been closely evaluating the crumbling situation in Venezuela. Not only is Trump adding more sanctions on the already impoverished nation as recent as February, his language against Venezuela has become increasingly aggressive as tensions between the United States and Maduro rise. In a speech given at Florida University called on the military, who are currently backing Maduro, to instead align themselves with Juan Guaido, the National Assembly and opposition leader. While adding that supporting Guaido would be investing in an optimistic future for the Venezuelan people, Trump did not mince words in a threat to Maduro’s supporters. He said, “If you choose this path you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose everything.”
This threat may seem heroic or justifiable at face value, but it affects more than those supporting Maduro. The United States has been sending “humanitarian aid” to Venezuela in recent months. In February, the U.S. government sent tons of non-perishable food items and medicine to Venezuela’s borders. However, almost none of the aid has reached citizens. The main border bridge into the country is surveilled by Maduro’s military forces and blocked by a tanker truck and shipping containers. Maduro denies the aid because he believes it is a cover to slip weapons into the hands of the opposition, which would lead to an all-out civil war.
Granted, U.S. intentions aren’t completely noble. U.S. officials have admitted leaving the aid on the border is meant to provoke the Venezuelan military to joining the opposition rather than wound or kill innocent people who are sick or hungry. The reality is many Venezuelans are injured or killed in an attempt to receive aid on the border, often fighting with the armed soldiers guarding the aid. Essentially, this aid is hurting citizens more than helping them. It’s true that if Guaido had military backing, the likelihood of Maduro’s removal would increase considerably.
But American aid is actively killing people faster than it is saving them. At this point, the food and medicine dropped at the border does not qualify as “humanitarian aid.” Humanitarian aid should not be used to influence the politics of any destitute nation. It should provide resources to those in need. United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross have remained neutral and rejected the U.S.’s request to assist them in sending aid because of the political effect any aid would have. The United States is persistent in its efforts to send relief. The real question American and Venezuelan citizens must face is, “Why?”
While it may seem to opposition leaders of Maduro that Trump’s administration is interfering in Venezuela to revive democracy and their economic disparity, the truth is much more selfish. It’s obvious Maduro is unfit to take care of his country, and many citizens are leaving it to avoid starvation, poverty and violence. But Trump has commended many other strongman dictators in the past, such as Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, in order to grow a diplomatic relationship despite how their people are treated. Trump’s focus is specifically on Venezuela’s oil. Back in July of 2017, former interim FBI director Andrew McCabe alleged Trump asked in a private meeting with intelligence officials why the United States wasn’t at war with Venezuela when “they have all that oil and they’re on our back door.” An Associated Press report issued in 2018 claimed the president suggested a military invasion of Venezuela if necessary.
The United States wants to boost its own economy and it hopes to do that by lifting Juan Guaido to power as interim president. Guaido’s U.S. representative states, “Venezuela’s government-in-waiting intends to scrap requirements that state-owned oil giant PDVSA keep a controlling stake in joint ventures as it seeks to revive the oil sector and encourage private investment.” This will give the United States an opportunity to profit more off the oil trade with Venezuela than it had in the past as PDVSA must current have a 51% stake in all joint projects with other countries. Trump’s hopes to replace Maduro with Guaido are simply to create more revenue for the United States, not to release the Venezuelan citizens from a dictatorship and establish democracy. In truth, the current United States administration is designed to ensure Venezuela’s leadership is shifted from Maduro to Guaido by any means necessary for this reason.
In an effort to control foreign affairs, the United States has significantly worsened overseas relationships and conflicts, and the Trump administration is liable to make the same mistakes; history has observed them in in Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, and more pertinently, in Nicaragua. Elliott Abrams was hired back to the state department in early 2019 after a 30-year absence as a special envoy for Venezuela. Abrams is most famously known for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, during which he trained and funded the Contras in Nicaragua. Abrams was also among the Reagan administration aides who smuggled weapons to the Contras in 1986, even though publicly, the state department halted funding and military aid to Nicaragua. In 1991, Elliott Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from two congressional committees about the administration’s interference with the Iran-Contra affair but was pardoned later by George W. Bush.
This man’s involvement in the sensitive and complicated matters of Venezuela’s crumbling infrastructure proves that the Trump administration continues the Unites States legacy of senseless bloodshed in foreign affairs. Trump’s team brought Abrams back months before sending the politically charged “humanitarian aid” which, as mentioned earlier, has killed many Venezuelans attempting to access it. Trump hired a man who is comfortable with lying about his involvement in carnage and war. The message the United States is sending to the world is, “We will instigate war and bloodshed for our economic gain, and we do not care about the consequences.”
Because of Trump’s intentions, Guaido is pawn for the United States to thrive under the petro-state that has failed the Venezuelan economy many times before. While he has been recognized by many countries as the interim Venezuelan president, he doesn’t have the power of the government or military by his side. Perhaps more importantly, the Venezuelan people didn’t vote for him. Guaido doesn’t have much history in politics, previously working as an engineer and served one term as a legislator for the Popular Will Party. Leaving him in power with the influence of Trump could be shaky for Venezuelans. While it is important to note that Guaido has said he hopes to hold another fair election by the end of this year, there are no guarantees.
This is not to say that Guaido lacks the intention to aid his country as best he can. I believe he could. Regardless, if Guaido is aided by Trump, whether that be planning a coup or receiving aid, Venezuela risks falling back into its reliance on oil in order to pay a gratitude of debt to the United States. If Guaido suddenly decides to stay in power with government and military backing but trade oil with the U.S. at lower costs, Trump might overlook Guaido’s behavior the same way he has done with other world leaders. The United States’ influence on the impoverished nation of Venezuela is not only harming their citizens, it is placing those citizens in the hands of an untested leader with the potential to do the same harm that their other leaders have done in the past.
As a result of Maduro’s poor leadership and the push for conflict from the United States, many Venezuelan citizens are forced to flee their home country due to hunger, violence, sickness, and persecution. In the past four years, over 2.7 million Venezuelans have fled in hopes of a safer and healthier life. Markets no longer have food left to put on the shelves, and if they did, as the hyper-inflation rate essentially makes the bolivar useless, food is more likely to be stolen. The rate of violent crime has increased due to Venezuelan families desperate need to provide for their families. Medical needs of citizens have gone untreated because of a lack of antibiotics and other basic medicines.
These people have a choice to either stay, fight, and suffer or leave and hope they can find asylum elsewhere. According to Rocio Cara Labrador, author of “The Venezuelan Exodus,” “approximately eight out of every ten Venezuelan migrants stay in Latin America and the Caribbean, while most of the remainder settle in North America and Southern Europe.” Ideally, citizens seek asylum or other forms of legal residency which can in turn secure jobs, schooling, and government services. However, hundreds of thousands of people aren’t offered that safety depending on where they go. But they have no choice. What is life after all, if your government officials remain apathetic among anarchy and pretend their infrastructure is fair and functional even as their resources are diminishing?
Life in Venezuela is simply unsafe and puts too many families at risk. Humans of New York, a photo-journal that anonymously documents the human experience worldwide, recently published a photo of a mother and daughter who had immigrated from Venezuela to Madrid, Spain. In her interview, the mother said, “We had a very difficult time back in Venezuela. There was no going to school or visiting friends. We couldn’t even go out on the street. All the time I was telling her ‘no.’ ‘Can we go to the park?’ No. ‘Can we go on a walk?’ No. ‘Can we get some ice cream?’ No. She couldn’t comprehend why she was being restricted. I could only explain that the situation was very bad.”
With lots of planning, the mother and daughter successfully escaped but were separated from the father. Still, they have been able to enjoy the simple pleasures they had been denied. The photo was taken in a park, a place that the pair would not have been able to safely travel to, much less enjoy, back in Venezuela. That’s what life in Venezuela has become. It is unsafe to leave your house, and if you do, you need to be back before curfew to protect yourself from violence from military and opposition alike.
If Venezuelan civilians can immigrate elsewhere, it’s likely the best option for them. There are organizations reaching out to immigrants to make an escape from the war-torn country as easy as possible. For example, the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) helps migrants find jobs, education, and housing. In one of their projects partnered with Global affairs Canada, PADF has set up both a school and a clinic in Boa Vista, Brazil, complete with air conditioning, restrooms, educational and medical supplies, as well as many other amenities. They’ve raised $100,000 USD so far to provide for evacuated Venezuelans and shelters.
Organizations like this are successful in Humanitarian Aid and have nothing to gain from providing it. They offer support because they truly care about the people and hope to bring them to a better life. Venezuela needs new infrastructure now. But if Maduro’s pig-headed inflexibility has shown the world anything, the last thing he is willing to do is step down, no matter how many people he hurts in the process. If his citizens don’t leave, they’ll likely endure more of the same neglect with the threat of interference from the U.S. looming over them more and more each day. This disparity, starvation, and violence is pushed on the citizens by Maduro, and the United States is merely instigating more chaos.
The tension between Maduro and Guaido reached a crescendo on Tuesday April 30th 2019, and unsurprisingly, Guaido was back by the United States in the conflict. In a televised address to Venezuelan citizens, Guaido appeared at a military base with a small group of soldiers at his side. Guaido had a fraction of the military support that Maduro held, but that did not deter him from asking Venezuelan citizens to join him in protest. In Guaido’s address, he said, “At this moment, I am with the main military units of our armed forces, starting the final phase of Operation Liberty. People of Venezuela, we will go to the street with the armed forces to continue taking the streets until we consolidate the end of usurpation, which is already irreversible.”
Thousands of people took to the streets in protest to support Guaido’s plan and chaos unfolded. An armored car plowed into a group of Guaido supporters. Rubber bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition were responsible for dozens of wounded protestors and the death of one 25-year-old man. The coup was not successful, however, and Maduro claimed to have handled the coup by Tuesday evening. Guaido’s assistance from the Trump administration in the final stages is likely what gave him the confidence to announce his operation one day early, as his dawn announce was originally to air on Wednesday May 1st, or international Labor Day for many countries. Trump’s Secretary of State offered an explanation for the failed rebellion to the press.
According to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Maduro planned to flee Venezuela to Cuba on the same Tuesday Guaido declared the final stages of Operation Liberty were in place, but Maduro remained in Venezuela on advice from Russia. Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has since denied the claims as false information. Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said of the coup in Caracas, “What Venezuela needs right now is political dialogue, not power grab attempts,” also noting that the United States interference would lead to “grave consequences.”
If Russia is as involved in preserving Maduro’s regime as the United States is in tearing it down, I fear for the safety of the Venezuelan people. I fear that in their extremely volatile and vulnerable state, they’ll be caught between two powers larger than their own. The United States had no problem threatening punishment to Maduro supporters when opposing foreign powers remained uninvolved. But if Russia is entangled in preserving Maduro’s regime, the U.S. will be forced to decide whether interfering in a weaker country’s civil war is worth the potential backlash from an equal power. The Trump administration is forced now to decide if their sustained interference in Venezuela’s government is worth the potential conflict with Russia.
The United States isn’t involving its power because of Venezuela’s desperate humanitarian crisis. Trump’s administration isn’t involved because of a loss of democracy, a lack of food or medicine, or the countless Venezuelans dying in the streets in protest every day. They are involved because of oil, the same oil that has driven Venezuela into the ground time and time again. All the while, the reality for Venezuelans remains the same. Maduro shows no signs of stepping down and releasing his citizens from his dictatorship anytime soon, especially with most of the Venezuelan military at his side.
The fight between Maduro and Guaido is too volatile to involve the United States’ outside aid, governance, and potential military interference. American aid sitting at the borders of Venezuela is effectively killing its citizens because Maduro refuses to let his people receive it. Trump adds sanction after sanction, adding to Venezuela’s financial crisis. All the while, there are politically neutral organizations actively attempting to help Venezuelans reach a better life without instigating violence and war. But rather than work with the Red Cross and the United Nations to reach and support diplomatic solutions such as mediated talks between Maduro and Guaido, or a United Nations observed election, the U.S. continues to advise Guaido and the opposition just like they did for the failed coup on April 30th. People are dying. It’s time to stand with other world powers to reach diplomacy or be open with the fact the United States cares about profit, no matter how many lives are lost.
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Rebecca Nason is a US Represented contributor and student at Pikes Peak Community College.
