Economic Restrictions Led by U.S. Are Contributing to Deadly Crisis in Venezuela
Political sanctions aren't about law, they're about causing misery to pressure populations into overthrowing their own governments and giving up their sovereignty. When Hugo Chavez passed away on March 5, 2013, the US started an economic blockade aiming to halt the continuation of the Bolivarian Process and the government of Nicolas Maduro. The first big move was Executive Order 13692, signed by President Barack Obama on March 8, 2015, which labeled Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States' national security and foreign policy.
Despite the mainstream media downplaying it as insignificant, the Obama decree marked the start of Venezuela's toxicization, as international investors and companies shied away from doing business with a nation sanctioned by the world's largest financial and military power. Citi Bank was the first institution to take action by closing accounts of Venezuela's Central Bank and the Bank of Venezuela after a risk management review in 2016.
Even though Venezuela kept paying its foreign debt, it faced rising borrowing costs. The "threat" claim was just a pretext for the upcoming all-out war, an illegal declaration. EO 13692 provided the "legal" grounds for the US Treasury Department to launch a wide-ranging sanctions program against Venezuela, its economy, and its people. Since the Obama decree had no expiration date, the blockade could go on indefinitely.
President Donald Trump announced a "maximum pressure" campaign in 2017, with the aim of blocking any chance of economic recovery and accelerating Venezuela's social collapse. Trump also started to threaten that "all options were on the table." The siege mainly targeted the oil industry, with the US Treasury Department imposing financial sanctions against state oil company PDVSA and an export embargo in January 2019.
Crude production fell from 1.9 million barrels per day in 2017 to 350,000 bpd in 2020, causing the GDP to shrink by over 65% between 2014 and 2019. Essential imports were hit as the country entered hyperinflation. The combined impact of primary and secondary sanctions resulted in severe fuel shortages, electricity crises, and a ban on gold trade, which Venezuela was using to buy food, fuel, medicine, and other imports.
According to the Venezuelan government, over $8 billion worth of Venezuelan assets and funds have been frozen or blocked by banks in the US, Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and Belgium, including nearly $2 billion in gold retained at the Bank of England. Washington alone has blocked the use of $342 million in accounts from the Central Bank of Venezuela. The entire sanctions program was reinforced by notifications issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in September 2017 and May 2019, warning institutions not to deal with Venezuelan state entities, even for essential imports.
The economic blockade coincided with a farcical political power play as the Trump administration backed the self-proclamation of Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as the "Interim President" in January 2019. The "'fake government'" nonsense lasted until early 2023. Guaido was handed control of Venezuelan bank accounts and state assets seized by Washington and allies to fund his coup attempts, including $10-billion-worth US-based oil subsidiary CITGO and $269-million-worth Colombia-based fertiliser Monómeros.
President Joe Biden took over the medieval-style siege against Venezuela in 2021, leaving it essentially intact, including one particularly twisted aspect: the "starvation sanctions."
Food purchases became a challenge due to the public and private sectors losing access to the international system of payments and banks discontinuing services out of fear of running afoul of US sanctions. The "hunger bomb" reached new heights in July 2019, when the US fully established starvation as a key foreign policy goal by targeting individuals and companies allegedly connected to Venezuela's Local Food Supply and Production Committees (CLAPs), created by the Maduro government in 2016 to distribute low-cost food boxes to working-class families. Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab was one target for allegedly profiting from overvalued state contracts.
In 2021, UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan reported that more than 2.5 million Venezuelans were suffering from food insecurity after imports dropped 73% between 2015 and 2019, while fuel and diesel scarcity endangered food production and transportation. Douhan also warned that insufficient basic medicines and their rising prices placed some 300,000 people at risk while thousands of cancer, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis patients were in dire need of treatment. Surgical procedures were reduced for lack of anesthesia and antibiotics, and due to only 20% of hospital equipment functioning.
According to the UN, 7.1 million Venezuelans have migrated due to the crisis between 2015 and 2023, causing a brain drain of doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, technicians, and others. Venezuelan human rights organisation SURES reported that Citibank and Euroclear were rejecting transactions for insulin doses and dialysis treatments, while pharmaceutical companies like Baxter, Abbot, and Pfizer repeatedly refused to issue export certificates for cancer treatments for Venezuelan patients.
SURES highlighted the case of several children dying since early 2019 after not receiving liver, kidney, and bone marrow transplants abroad because banks and private companies became overly cautious in dealings with Venezuela. Venezuelan children had been beneficiaries of a humanitarian program financed by oil subsidiary CITGO, seized by Washington.
Finally, SURES stated that women, children, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities were the most affected by the economic crisis exacerbated by US sanctions. The latter group has seen prosthetic donations reduced, with NGOs and government social programs unable to import them.
In conclusion, while it's difficult to get a precise number, the evidence points to one simple truth: sanctions kill and will continue to do so.
- Venezuelan Analysis agrees that sanctions, such as the one outlined in Executive Order 13692, are part of a general news narrative about war-and-conflicts and policy-and-legislation, designed to cause misery and force change.
- The prolonged economic blockade, initiated by the Obama administration in 2015, has been a significant factor in the 13692 certificates crisis, as international banks and companies have chosen to avoid business with Venezuela.
- Migration from Venezuela has increased significantly due to the political crisis, with over 7.1 million people moving between 2015 and 2023, a fact attributed to the war-and-conflicts created by the policies and legislation, including sanctions.
- The policy-and-legislation, such as the sanctions, has had a direct impact on the lives of the Venezuelan people, causing shortages in essential imports, including food and medicine, and disrupting healthcare services such as insulin doses and dialysis treatments.
- The effects of the sanctions are particularly severe on vulnerable groups, including women, children, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities, who have faced challenges in accessing basic needs like prosthetics due to the blockade.
