The New York Times, in a recent article titled “How Venezuela’s Autocrat Uses Crypto to Fight Trump’s Sanctions”, slipped in the hidden truth about U.S. sanctions on Venezuela.
The article writes:
The United States’ pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is extinguishing the country’s short-lived economic recovery, leading many inside Venezuela to brace for another economic crisis.
The tightening of American sanctions this year has pushed inflation back into triple digits, sent the national currency into a free fall, worsened power cuts and led the government, companies and residents to hoard dollars and slash spending.
To Venezuelans across the political spectrum, the growing signs of an economic downturn revive memories of hardships that many had hoped they had left behind.
The article even went on to admit, “In the past decade, Venezuela went through the deepest recession of any modern nation outside a war zone. A combination of disastrous economic policies, corruption, and U.S. sanctions created prolonged hyperinflation, collapsed basic services, increased malnutrition and led millions to migrate to escape extreme poverty.”
(Emphasis: Mine)
The article adds that due to current U.S. sanctions, “Venezuela’s annual inflation rate will increase to 600 percent from 50 percent this year, and prices could begin rising exponentially, a scenario known as hyperinflation, in 2026”.
The article even admitted that the U.S.-backed opposition in Venezuela supports U.S. sanctions and “worsening living conditions in Venezuela”, in hopes it will “re-establish democracy” i.e. bring them to power.
The article noted:
Venezuela’s main opposition movement and its allies in the Trump administration are betting that an economic crisis, combined with the aggressive U.S. military campaign in the Caribbean, will fracture the Venezuelan government and end 25 years of a regime now led by Mr. Maduro.
They see worsening living conditions in Venezuela as an unavoidable and short-term cost of re-establishing democracy.
While the New York Times finally admits that U.S. sanctions have helped lead to “prolonged hyperinflation, collapsed basic services, increased malnutrition,” and that their intention is to create “worsening living conditions in Venezuela”, the truth is even worse.
A study in the Lancet medical journal published this year found that U.S. sanctions cause 500,000 deaths per year worldwide.
Mark Weisbrot, one of the economists behind the study, expanded on it in the LA Times, writing:
In Venezuela, the first year of sanctions under the first Trump administration took tens of thousands of lives. Then things got even worse, as the U.S. cut off the country from the international financial system and oil exports, froze billions of dollars of assets and imposed “secondary sanctions” on countries that tried to do business with Venezuela.
Venezuela experienced the worst depression, without a war, in world history. This was from 2012 to 2020, with the economy contracting by 71% — more than three times the severity of the Great Depression in the U.S. in the 1930s. Most of this was found to be the result of the sanctions.
Our study found that a majority of people who died as a result of sanctions in all countries were children under 5. This atrocity is consistent with prior research. Medical studies have found that children in this age group become much more susceptible to death from childhood diseases such as diarrhea, pneumonia and measles when they become malnourished.
Another economist who worked on the study, the Venezuelan opposition economist Francisco Rodríguez, previously put out another study proving that U.S. sanctions prevented Venezuela’s Oil production - the country’s main export- from recovering.
Rodríguez concluded, “The evidence strongly supports the contention that economic sanctions and other actions of economic statecraft aimed at the Venezuelan government have strongly impacted the country’s economic and humanitarian conditions. Although there is certainly some variation across estimates and room for differing interpretations of the data, it is hard to deny that they have had a sizable negative impact on living conditions in the country”.
A 2019 study from the economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs recorded that, “We find that the sanctions (On Venezuela) have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017–2018; and that these sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions”.
The study noted that U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, “adversely impacted oil production in Venezuela,” adding that, “It is important to emphasize that nearly all of the foreign exchange that is needed to import medicine, food, medical equipment, spare parts and equipment needed for electricity generation, water systems, or transportation, is received by the Venezuelan economy through the government’s revenue from the export of oil.”
The study went on to note that, “The sanctions implemented in 2019, including the recognition of a parallel government, accelerated this deprivation and also cut off Venezuela from most of the international payments system, thus ending much of the country’s access to these essential imports, including medicine and food — even those that could normally be bought with available dollars.”
Alfred de Zayas, a former independent expert for the United Nations Human Rights Council, expanded on the study at the time and noted that the sanctions overall killed 100,000 people by 2020.
Also in 2020, Alena Douhan, who at the time was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, noted that, “the economic blockade of Venezuela and the freezing of Central Bank assets have exacerbated pre-existing economic and humanitarian situation by preventing the earning of revenues and the use of resources to develop and maintain infrastructure and for social support programs, which has a devastating effect on the whole population of Venezuela, especially those in extreme poverty, women, children, medical workers, people with disabilities or life-threatening or chronic diseases, and the indigenous population”.
The real intention behind the barbaric sanctions on Venezuela, as the New York Times admit,s has been to create “worsening living conditions in Venezuela” in hopes it will lead to regime change.
While the New York Times repeats the propaganda line that the U.S. and Venezuelan opposition want regime change to “re-establish democracy”, the real motive is to gain access to Venezuela’s natural resources.
Trump admitted while running for president in 2024, “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse, we would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door”.
The U.S. puppet in Venezuela, whom they want to replace Maduro with, María Corina Machado, admitted on Donald Trump Jr’s show “Venezuela has huge resources, oil, gas, minerals, land, technology …American companies are in, you know, a super strategic position to invest” adding, “This country Venezuela is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies of good people that are going to make a lot of money.”
As the Financial Times wrote :
Trump says the armada off Venezuela is needed to combat drug trafficking and narco-terrorism, which threaten US national security. But experts see other motives, including a desire to oust Maduro, to help US companies do deals in oil-rich Venezuela and to send a message to Maduro’s Russian and Chinese allies that the US wants them out of its “back yard”.
Victoria Murillo, director of the Latin American Studies institute at Columbia University, said Trump’s move on Venezuela only made sense if viewed as “about opportunities for US companies . . . trying to change Maduro so that US companies get access to Venezuelan oil: old-fashioned imperialism in the economic sense”.
Note to readers: The Dissident is a reader-supported outlet. If you liked this article, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Shame on Trump. Shame on the US.
False flag to steal oil and install a Rothchild bank. Rand Paul and intelelligence agencies say Venezuela is not a source for drugs. Paul says the boat would have to refuel 20 times to get to U.S.. Who you gonna believe: The guy who promised long lasting world peace and instead is funding genocide everywhere or Rand Paul? DUH!