Crisis in Venezuela (2012–present)

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Crisis in Venezuela
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Top to bottom, left to right:
Protesters confront the People's Guard at Plaza Francia on 18 March 2014. Empty store shelves in a Venezuelan store. Millions of Venezuelans protest in Caracas on 26 October 2016. Venezuelans queued to enter a store.
Date 2012–ongoing[1]
Location Venezuela
Cause Economic policy, crime, corruption, economic downturn, shortages and political conflict.

The Crisis in Venezuela is the socioeconomic crisis that Venezuela has undergone since Hugo Chávez's tenure and which extended over the years into the current presidency of Nicolás Maduro. During the year 2016, for example, consumer prices rose 800%, the economy contracted by 18.6%,[2] and hunger escalated to the point that the "Venezuela's Living Conditions Survey" (ENCOVI) found nearly 75 percent of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg (19.4 lb) in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition.[3] The murder rate in 2015 was 90 per 100,000 people according to the Observatory of Venezuelan Violence (compared to 5 per 100,000 in the US).[4]

The crisis affected the average life of Venezuelans on various levels; the rise of unemployment, which resulted in the emergence of social movements aimed at changing the economic and productive model, as well as questioning the political system and demanding a democratic renewal. The most important social movement is the Venezuelan student movement,[citation needed] which has arisen mainly due to precariousness and economic conditions. Political corruption, scarcity of basic products, closure of companies, deterioration of productivity and competitiveness, and high dependence on oil are other problems that have also contributed to the worsening crisis.

Background

Chávez presidency

Chávez wearing military fatigues in 2010

With increasing oil prices in the early 2000s and funds not seen in Venezuela since the 1980s, Hugo Chávez created the Bolivarian Missions, aimed at providing public services to improve economic, cultural, and social conditions,[5][6][7][8] with Chávez intending to maintain political power through social programs.[9] According to Corrales and Penfold, "aid was disbursed to some of the poor, and more gravely, in a way that ended up helping the president and his allies and cronies more than anyone else".[10] The Missions entailed the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor,[5] and the enactment of food[7] and housing subsidies.[6] A 2010 OAS report[11] indicated achievements in addressing illiteracy, healthcare and poverty,[12] and economic and social advances.[13] The quality of life for Venezuelans had also improved according to a UN Index.[14] Teresa A. Meade wrote that Chávez's popularity strongly depended "on the lower classes who have benefited from these health initiatives and similar policies."[15]

The social works initiated by Chávez's government relied on oil products, the keystone of the Venezuelan economy, with Chávez's administration suffering from Dutch disease as a result.[16][17] By the end of Chávez's presidency in the early 2010s, economic actions performed by his government during the preceding decade such as overspending [18][19][16][20][21] and price controls[7][22][23][24][25] proved to be unsustainable, with Venezuela's economy faltering while poverty,[14][26][27] inflation[28] and shortages in Venezuela increased.

According to analysts, the economic woes Venezuela continued to suffer through under President Nicolás Maduro would have still occurred with or without Chávez.[29] In early 2013, shortly after Chávez's death, Foreign Policy stated that whoever succeeded Chávez would "inherit one of the most dysfunctional economies in the Americas—and just as the bill for the deceased leader’s policies comes due".[16]

Maduro presidency

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It is impossible to understand why the government is not reacting to this reality, why it has not taken measures to alleviate the economic distortions that are destroying the real income of Venezuelans.

Barclays, September 2015[30]

When elected in 2013 following Chávez's death, Nicolás Maduro continued the majority of existing economic policies of his predecessor Hugo Chávez. When entering the presidency, President Maduro's Venezuela faced a high inflation rate and large shortages of goods[31][32][33] that was left over from the previous policies of President Chávez.[34][16][18][19]

President Maduro has blamed capitalism for speculation that is driving high rates of inflation and creating widespread shortages of staples, and often said he was fighting an "economic war", calling newly enacted economic measures "economic offensives" against political opponents he and loyalists state are behind an international economic conspiracy.[35][36][37][38][39][40] However, President Maduro has been criticized for only concentrating on public opinion instead of tending to the practical issues economists have warned the Venezuelan government about or creating any ideas to improve the economic situation in Venezuela such as the "economic war".[41][42]

By 2014, Venezuela had entered an economic recession[43] and by 2015, the country had an inflation rate which had reached its highest rate in its history.[44]

Economic crisis

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value). The origin of this economic collapse, framed in the context of the Great Recession, years after the improvement of the extraction of unconventional hydrocarbons in the United States showed a macro-economic phenomenon of great importance for the region. From China's slowdown, a steady increase in oil production and stable demand, generated a surplus of this resource that caused a drop in prices of reference crude oil, WTI and Brent, as at the beginning of 2014 Found above $100 and at the end of the year could fall to $50 per barrel, causing unfavourable changes in the economy of Venezuela.

Due to high oil reserves, lack of policies on private property and low remittances, by 2012, of every 100 dollars, more than 90 came from oil and its derivatives. With the fall in oil prices in early 2015 the country faces a drastic fall in revenues of the US currency along with commodities.

In addition the government has not made policy changes to adapt to the low petroleum price. As of early 2016, the Washington Post reports the official price of state-retailed petrol is below US$.01 per gallon, and the official state currency exchange rate values the US dollar at 1/150th what the black market does.[45]

Housing

Since the mid-2000s during Chávez's presidency, Venezuela suffered from a housing crisis.[46] In 2005, the Venezuelan Construction Chamber (CVC) estimated that there was a shortage of 1.6 million homes, with only 10,000 of 120,000 promised homes constructed by Chávez's government despite billions of dollars in investments.[47] Due to the shortages, poor Venezuelans attempted to construct homes on their own despite structural risks.[47]

File:El Paraíso tunnel main gate of Caracas.jpg
Slums in Caracas seen above El Paraíso tunnel

By 2011, Venezuela suffered from a housing shortage of 2 million homes, with nearly twenty prime developments being occupied by squatters following Chávez's call for the poor to occupy "unused land".[46][48] Up to 2011, only 500,000 homes were constructed under Chávez, with over two-thirds of the new housing developments being built by private companies while the Bolivarian government provided about the same amount of housing as previous administrations.[48] Housing shortages were further exasperated when private construction halted due to the fear of property expropriations and because of the Bolivarian government's inability to construct and provide housing.[46] In a July 2011 article by The Guardian, urban theorist and author Mike Davis, "Despite official rhetoric, the Bolivarianist regime has undertaken no serious redistribution of wealth in the cities and oil revenues pay for too many other programmes and subsidies to leave room for new housing construction".[49] By 2012, the shortage of building materials had also began to disrupt construction, with metal production at a 16-year low.[50] At the end of Chávez's presidency in 2013, the number of Venezuelans in inadequate housing grew to 3 million.[50]

Under the Maduro government, housing shortages continued to worsen. Maduro announced in 2014 that due to the shortage of steel, abandoned cars and other vehicles would be acquired by the government and melted to provide rebar for housing.[50] In April 2014, Maduro ruled by decree that Venezuelans who owned three or more rental properties would be forced by the government to sell their rental units at a set price or they would face fines or have their property possessed by the government.[51] In By 2016, residents of government provided housing, who were usually supporters of the Bolivarian government, began protesting due to the lack of utilities and food.[52]

Venezuelan debt

File:Venezuelan Debt.png
Venezuelan debt, 2014

According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, the foreign debt of the Venezuelan state in 2014 is divided into:

  • Venezuelan public debt: it represents 55% of the total and is what is owed in terms of domestic and foreign debt bonds, treasury bills and bank loans.
  • PDVSA's financial debt: it represents 21% of the total debt
  • Foreign debt: accounts for 15% of total debt, financing obtained through Chinese funds.
  • CADIVI's debt: represents 9% of the debt. It is CADIVI's non-financial debt (currencies for imports, dividends, income and services in general)

Shortages

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Shortages in Venezuela have been prevalent following the enactment of price controls and other policies during the economic policy of the Hugo Chávez government.[33][32] Under the economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro government, greater shortages occurred due to the Venezuelan government's policy of withholding United States dollars from importers with price controls.[53]

Shortages occur in regulated products, such as milk, various types of meat, chicken, coffee, rice, oil, precooked flour, butter prices; and also basic necessities like toilet paper, personal hygiene products and medicine.[33][54][55] As a result of the shortages, Venezuelans must search for food, occasionally resorting to eating wild fruit or garbage, wait in lines for hours and sometimes settle without having certain products.[56][57][58][59][60]

Gross domestic product

In October 2014 due to the crisis, the Venezuelan economy contracted 2.3%. In the second quarter, there was a fall of 4.9%, after registering a contraction of 4.8% in the first three months of the year.

Venezuela has a strong dependence on oil, which generates about 96% of its export revenues. The fall in oil prices has occurred at a time when the South American country faces runaway inflation, which reached an annualized rate of 63.9% in November, and a severe scarcity of basic products.

In reference to the violent anti-government protests that shook Venezuela earlier this year and alleged plans to destabilize the country, which President Maduro said included smuggling and hoarding essential products, the central bank said that those "actions against the national order prevented The full distribution of basic goods to the population, as well as the normal development of the production of goods and services. This resulted in an inflationary upturn and a fall in economic activity. "

Inflation

Inflation in 2014 reached 68.5%.[citation needed] This figure is one of the highest that has been recorded in the country's economic history,[citation needed] and was the highest in the world during 2013.[citation needed] By 2015, inflation had reached 180.9%.[citation needed] As of 2016, inflation, as evidenced by the year-over-year increase in the consumer price index from 2015, was at 424.2%.[61]

Business and industry

At the beginning of the crisis, international airlines (which depart from Maiquetia international airport in Caracas) have had problems getting their normal flights to and from Venezuela, and as a result, many airlines have left the country.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Government of Venezuela has retained 3.8 billion dollars to airlines. As a result of this, the country loses business opportunities, aggravating the deep crisis that currently suffers.

Airlines such as Air Canada, Alitalia, Lufthansa, among others, join forces to leave the country, making the departure of the country even more difficult. Other airlines, most of them, reduced the number of flights and the size of the planes, in an effort to stay in the country. Like the Colombian Avianca, one of the operations that carried out more and that now only has a quarter of its seats.

Unemployment

As a result of the crisis, Venezuela has suffered the greatest unemployment in years, being this one of the biggest problems of the Venezuelans, due to the inflation and expropriations by the Venezuelan government to private companies, many others are leaving the country, leaving too many Venezuelans in unemployment.

Likewise, the salary increase at the end of 2016 (this being one of the supposed solutions of the government), brought with it the dismissal of half of the employees of large companies (Corpoelec, Imaseo, etc. ...).

In January 2016 the unemployment rate closed at 18.1 percent[62] becoming the most miserable economy in the world.[63]

Corruption

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value). Corruption in Venezuela is high according to Transparency International's (TNI) Corruptions Perceptions Index and is prevalent throughout many levels of Venezuela's society.[64] In the case of Venezuela, the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century has worsened political corruption.[65] While corruption is difficult to measure reliably, Transparency International currently ranks Venezuela among the top 20 most corrupt countries, tied with four other countries as the 8th most corrupt nation in the world.[66] A 2014 Gallup poll found that 75% of Venezuelans believed that corruption was widespread throughout the Venezuelan government.[67] Discontent with corruption was cited by opposition-aligned groups as one of the reasons for the 2014 Venezuelan protests.[68]

Social crisis

Hunger

In 2016 the "Venezuela's Living Conditions Survey" (ENCOVI) found nearly 75 percent of the population had lost an average of at least 8.7 kg (19.4 lb) in weight due to a lack of proper nutrition.[3] When the price of petroleum was high, Venezuela became dependent on food imports, as the price declined the government can no longer could afford to import what the country needs. According to Al Jazeera, following the fall in the price of petroleum,

food rationing grew so severe that Venezuelans spent all day waiting in lines. Pediatric wards filled up with underweight children, and formerly middle-class adults began possibly picking through rubbish bins for scraps.[69]

According to the head of waste collection in the city of Maracaibo, Ricardo Boscan, six out of every 10 garbage bags or trash cans are being looted by hungry people.[70] Other signs of hunger in Venezuela include the killing of dogs, cats, donkeys, horses and pigeons—whose dismembered remains are found in city dumps—and of protected wildlife such as flamingos and giant anteaters.[70]

Corruption is a problem in the distribution of food. According to an operations director at one food import business, "You have to pay for [the military] to even look at your cargo now. It's an unbroken chain of bribery from when your ship comes in until the food is driven out in trucks." While using the military to control food distribution has "drained the feeling of rebellion from the armed forces" by giving soldiers access to food denied others, the resulting corruption has increases shortages for the general public.[69][59]

Crime

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value).Escalating violent crime, especially murder, had been called "perhaps the biggest concern" of Venezuelans during the crisis. According to the think tank Observatory of Venezuelan Violence, 27,875 homicides were committed in Venezuela in 2015, a rate of about 90 per 100,000 people (compared to 5 per 100,000 for the US).[4] According to the New Yorker magazine Venezuela has, "by various measures, the world’s highest violent-crime rate". Less than two per cent of reported crimes are prosecuted.[71] According to the Los Angeles Times,

carjack gangs set up ambushes, sometimes laying down nail-embedded strips to puncture tires of vehicles ferrying potential quarry. Motorists speak matter-of-factly of spotting body parts along roadways. ... While most crime victims are poor, they also include members of the middle and upper classes and scores of police and military personnel killed each year, sometimes for their weapons. ... "Before the thieves would only rob you,” is a common refrain here in the capital. “Now they kill you.”[4]

A reporter for The New Yorker magazine found that even stairwells in public hospital in the city of Valencia were not safe from robbers preyed on staff and patients despite the large number of National Guard, local and national police, and militia guarding the hospital. (This was because the police were assigned to guard the hospital from journalists who might embarrass the government with exposes on the state of the hospital—not protect to its occupants. The police allegedly collaborated with the robbers receiving a cut of what they stole.)[71]

Emigration

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value). The Bolivarian diaspora is the voluntary emigration of millions of Venezuelans from their native country during the presidencies of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, due to the establishment of their Bolivarian Revolution.[72][73] According to Newsweek, the "Bolivarian diaspora is a reversal of fortune on a massive scale" where the "reversal" is meant as a comparison to Venezuela's high immigration rate during the 20th century.[73] The analysis of a study by Central University of Venezuela titled Venezuelan Community Abroad. A New Method of Exile by El Universal states that the "Bolivarian diaspora" in Venezuela has been caused by the "deterioration of both the economy and the social fabric, rampant crime, uncertainty and lack of hope for a change in leadership in the near future".[72] The Wall Street Journal stated that many "white-collar Venezuelans have fled the country's high crime rates, soaring inflation and expanding statist controls".[74] It is estimated that more than 1.5 million emigrated from Venezuela from 1999 to 2014[72] while in 2015, it was estimated that approximately 1.8 million Venezuelans had emigrated to other countries according to the PGA Group.[75][76]

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Parents will say, "I would rather say goodbye to my son in the airport than in the cemetery".

Tomás Páez, Central University of Venezuela[77]

In 1998, the year Chávez was first elected, only 14 Venezuelans were granted U.S. asylum. In just 12 months in September 1999, 1,086 Venezuelans were granted asylum according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.[78] Chávez's rhetoric of redistributing wealth to the poor concerned wealthy and middle class Venezuelans causing the first portion of a diaspora fleeing the Bolivarian government.[77] In a May 2002 cable from the United States Embassy, Caracas to United States agencies expressing astonishment at the number of Venezuelans attempting to enter the United States, stating, "This drain of skilled workers could have a significant impact on Venezuela's future".[79]

Academics and business leaders have stated that emigration from Venezuela increased significantly during the final years of Chávez's presidency and especially during the presidency of Nicolás Maduro.[80] This second diasporic episode consisted of lower class Venezuelans who suffered from the economic crisis facing the country, with the same individuals that Chávez attempted to aid seeking to emigrate due to their discontent.[77] It has been estimated in the year 2016 alone, over 150,000 Venezuelans emigrated from their native country, with The New York Times stating that it was "the highest in more than a decade, according to scholars studying the exodus".[77] Venezuelans have opted to emigrate through various ways, though image of Venezuelans fleeing the country by sea has also raised symbolic comparisons to the images seen from the Cuban diaspora.[77]

Health care

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Healthcare spending by percentage of Venezuela's GDP[1]

Following the Bolivarian Revolution and the establishment of the Bolivarian government, initial healthcare practices were promising with the installation of free healthcare and the assistance received from Cuban medical professionals providing aid. The government's failure to concentrate on healthcare for Venezuelans, the reduction of healthcare spending and government corruption eventually affected medical practices in Venezuela; causing avoidable deaths along with an emigration of medical professionals to other countries.[81][82]

Venezuela's reliance of imported goods and its complicated exchange rates initiated under Hugo Chávez led to increasing shortages during the late-2000s and into the 2010s that affected the availability of medicines and medical equipment in the country.[82] By 2010, the Bolivarian government stopped publishing medical statistics.[83] Throughout Chávez's presidency, the Health Ministry changed ministers multiple times. According to a high-ranking official of Venezuela's Health Ministry, the ministers were treated as scapegoats whenever issues with public health arose in Venezuela.[82] The official also explained how Health Ministry officials would also perform illicit acts in order to enrich themselves by selling goods designated to public healthcare to others.[82]

Into the Maduro presidency, the Bolivarian government could not supply enough dollars for medical supplies among healthcare providers; with doctors saying that 9 of 10 of large hospitals had only 7% of required supplies with private doctors reporting many patients that are "impossible" to count are dying from easily treated illnesses due to the "downward sliding economy" in 2014.[83] Due to such complications, many Venezuelans died avoidable deaths with medical professionals having to use limited resources to use methods that were replaced decades ago.[81] In February 2014, doctors at University of Caracas Medical Hospital stopped performing surgeries due to the lack of supplies, even though nearly 3,000 people require surgery.[84] Venezuela was the first country declared free of malaria (in 1961). As of 2016 its malaria-prevention program had collapsed, and there are more than a hundred thousand cases of malaria yearly.[71] By August 2014, Venezuela was the only country in Latin America where the incidence of malaria was increasing, allegedly due to illegal mining and in 2013, Venezuela registered the highest number of cases of malaria in the past 50 years, with 300 of 100,000 Venezuelans being infected with the disease. Medical shortages in the country also hampered the treatment of Venezuelans.[85] Shortages of antiretroviral medicines to treat HIV/AIDS affected about 50,000 Venezuelans, potentially causing thousands of Venezuelans with HIV to develop AIDS.[86]

In late 2014, Venezuelans began saying that due to shortages of medicines, it was hard to find acetaminophen to help alleviate the newly introduced chikungunya virus, a potentially lethal mosquito-borne disease.[87] In September 2014, the Venezuelan government stated that only 400 Venezuelans were infected with chikungunya[88] while the Central University of Venezuela stated that there could be between 65,000 and 117,000 Venezuelans infected.[89] In August 2015 independent health monitors said that there were more than two million people infected with chikungunya while the government said there were 36,000 cases.[90]

By early 2015, only 35% of hospital beds were available and 50% of operating rooms could not function due to the lack of resources.[81][82] In March 2015, a Venezuelan NGO, Red de Medicos por la Salud, reported that there was a 68% shortage of surgical supplies and a 70% shortage of medicines in Venezuelan pharmacies.[82] In May 2015, the Venezuelan Medical Federation said that 15,000 doctors had left the public health care system because of shortages of drugs and equipment and poor pay. In August 2015 Human Rights Watch said “We have rarely seen access to essential medicines deteriorate as quickly as it has in Venezuela except in war zones.”[90] By the end of 2015, the Bolivarian government reported that of all Venezuelans visiting public hospitals in the year, one-of-three patients died.[91]

In 2016, infant mortality increased 30.12% to 11,466 deaths, maternal mortality increased 65.79% with 756 deaths and malaria increased 76.4% to 240,613 cases. Cases of diphtheria, which was thought to have been eradicated from Venezuela in the 1990s, had also began to reappear in the country during the year.[92] Shortly after the 2016 health statistics were released to the public in May 2017, President Maduro replaced Minister of Health, Dr. Antonieta Caporale, with a pharmacist close to vice-president Tareck El Aissami, Luis López Chejade.[93]

Public opinion

In a November 2016 survey by Datincorp, Venezuelans living in urban areas were asked which entity was responsible for the crisis, with 59% stating that President Chávez (25%), President Maduro (19%) and chavismo (15%) were the causes, while 16% blamed the opposition (10%), entrepreneurs (4%) and the United States (2%).[94]

Political crisis

File:Freedom ratings in Venezuela (1998 to 2013).png
Ratings for Venezuela from 1998 to 2017 by the U.S. Government-funded NGO Freedom House [2] (1 = Free, 7 = not free)

Protests and recall movement

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value). Discontent with the Bolivarian government saw the opposition being elected to hold the majority in the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 following the 2015 parliamentary election.

The political crisis was unleashed in October 2016 when at least six lower Venezuelan state criminal courts declared void the previous processes of collecting signatures in their states. As a consequence, the National Electoral Council declared the end of the national referendum for the removal of Nicolas Maduro from the presidency of Venezuela, following previous opinions of the Supreme Court of Justice.[citation needed]

The Venezuelan opposition, through the Bureau of Democratic Unity, announced in reaction a peaceful demonstration at the national level, called "Venezuela takeover", to be held throughout the country from Wednesday 26 October 2016 and with indefinite duration . Finally, the opposition announced the "March to Miraflores" to be held on Thursday, November 3, 2016 concentrated in Caracas at the Miraflores Palace.[citation needed]

Likewise, the Venezuelan National Assembly, which had been declared "in contempt" by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, declared the "rupture of the constitutional order" in Venezuela in extraordinary session.57 58 On October 25, the National Assembly debated Possibility of bringing Maduro to trial for his responsibility in adopting the decision of the lower court, and its application as a national decision to suspend the recall referendum, though the Constitution does not grant this power to the legislature.[citation needed]

Following the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, and the push to ban potential opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles from politics for 15 years, protests grew to their most "combative" since they began in 2014.

File:Mother of All Marches - Caracas.jpg
Millions of Venezuelans protesting during the Mother of All Marches

Constitutional assembly

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On 1 May 2017 following a month of protests that resulted in at least 29 dead, Maduro called for a Constitutional Assembly that would draft a new constitution that would replace the 1999 Venezuela Constitution.[95] He invoked Article 347, and stated that his call for a new constitution was necessary to counter the actions of the opposition. The members of the Constitutional Assembly were not be elected in open elections, but selected from social organizations loyal to Maduro.[95] It would also allow him to stay in power during the interregnum and skip the 2018 presidential elections, as the process would take at least two years.[96]

The opposition started a common front for all the people in Venezuela that oppose the amendment. On 20 June 2017, President of the National Assembly Julio Borges, the opposition-led legislative body of Venezuela, announced the activations of Articles 333 and 350 of the Venezuelan Constitution in order to establish new parallel government.[97][98]

Constituent Assembly elections were held on 30 July 2017.[99][100]The decision to hold the election was criticised by members of the international community, with over 40 countries[101][102] along with supranational bodies such as the European Union,[103] Mercosur[104] and the Organization of American States[105] condemning and failing to recognize the election, stating it would only further escalate tensions. President Maduro's allies — such as Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria[106][107][108] — discouraged foreign intervention in Venezuelan politics and congratulated the president.[109][110][111]

The 2017 Constituent Assembly of Venezuela was officially sworn in on 4 August 2017.[112][113]

On August 11, 2017 US President Donald Trump said that he is “not going to rule out a military option” to confront the autocratic government of Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in Venezuela.[114] Venezuela’s Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino immediately criticized Trump for his statement, calling it “an act of supreme extremism” and “an act of madness.” The Venezuelan communications minister, Ernesto Villegas, said Trump’s words amounted to “an unprecedented threat to national sovereignty.”[115]

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  61. Venezuela country profile (Economy tab), World in Figures. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2017. (Retrieved 2017-06-14.)
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  65. From 1917, "greater awareness of the country's oil potential had the pernicious effect of increasing the corruption and intrigue amongst Gomez's family and entourage, the consequences of which would be felt up to 1935 – B. S. McBeth (2002), Juan Vicente Gómez and the Oil Companies in Venezuela, 1908–1935, Cambridge University Press, p. 17.
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  112. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/americas/venezuela-assembly-first-day/index.html
  113. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuela-ushers-in-new-pro-government-chamber-as-opposition-vows-rebellion/2017/08/04/9c0c71e2-7883-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_story.html
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