My Take | US sanctions-based foreign policy is mindless and heartless
- America’s systematic destruction of Venezuela’s economy and impoverishment of its people is an egregious example of its global economic warfare
Venezuela’s strongman Nicolas Maduro is autocratic and repressive. There is evidence that his government rigged the latest election. He certainly had the means and the motive to do it. His brand of bad socialist economics, much like that of his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, dragged down the economy, caused hyperinflation and spread corruption. But having the world’s largest oil reserves could have propped up the economy for a long time, if not for the devastating impact of the United States’ decade-long economic warfare to bring down his regime.
If you think Maduro and his regime supporters are odious, those in the opposition and their handlers in Washington are no angels, either.
Their brand of neoliberal economics would inevitably start with the termination of government subsidies and services, and privatisation of state assets on the cheap. Its scale would likely dwarf the already extreme austerity of Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei.
It will likely cause even more suffering to ordinary people. But domestic would-be oligarchs and American corporations, especially those in oil and natural gas, are already waiting in the wings and hoping for a bonanza if Maduro is ever ousted.
US sanctions have effectively destroyed the entirety of the country’s export revenue, of which 96 per cent used to come from oil sales.
“Sanctions on Venezuela,” the Washington Post reported, “contributed to an economic contraction roughly three times as large as that caused by the Great Depression in the United States.”
