Economic Restrictions by the U.S. Are Resulting in Venezuelan Deaths
Sanctions are political, not legal tools. Their true aim is to create pain and suffering within a population, compelling them to overthrow their own government and give up their national sovereignty.
After Hugo Chavez's death on March 5, 2013, Washington started a financial stranglehold to thwart the continuation of the Bolivarian Process and the newly-elected Nicola Maduro government. The first aggressive measure was Executive Order 13692, signed by President Barack Obama on March 8, 2015, labeling Venezuela as an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the United States' national security and foreign policy.
Despite corporate media downplaying it as insignificant, the Obama decree marked the beginning of Venezuela's "toxification." International investors and corporations began to shy away from doing business with a nation targeted by the world's strongest financial and military power.
In 2016, Citibank kicked off the trend by closing accounts of Venezuela's Central Bank and the Bank of Venezuela after conducting a risk management review. Caracas, despite persistently servicing its foreign debt, faced escalating borrowing costs.
However, the pretext of Venezuela representing a "threat" was merely a pretext for the forthcoming full declaration of war, a unilateral and illegal one. EO 13692 furnished the "legal" grounds for the US Treasury Department to implement a far-reaching sanctions program against the country, its economy, and its people. Given that the Obama decree has no expiration date, this siege can be maintained indefinitely.
In 2017, President Donald Trump announced a "maximum pressure" campaign to thwart any shot at economic recovery and accelerate Venezuela's social collapse. Trump also began to threaten that "all options were on the table."
The siege primarily targeted Venezuela's lifeblood: the oil industry. In August 2017, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed financial sanctions against state oil company PDVSA followed by an export embargo in January 2019.
With crude production dipping from 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2017 to 350.000 bpd in 2020, the country's GDP plummeted by more than 65% between 2014 and 2019, leaving essential imports in peril as the country entered hyperinflation.
The combination of major and secondary sanctions caused severe fuel shortages. Without diesel fuel for thermal generators, the country turned over-reliant on hydroelectric power generation, which faced challenges due to a lack of imported equipment. Consequently, an enormous electricity crisis erupted in March 2019.
Since Venezuela sits on the world's second-largest certified gold reserves, the mining sector became the next main target. In March 2019, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Venezuela's General Mining Company (Minerven), halting trades with US persons and companies.
Caracas was using gold reserves to purchase essential imports such as food, fuel, medicine, and other necessities.
The ban on the gold trade was followed by sanctions against Venezuela's public banking system. In April that year, the US Treasury blacklisted the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) to restrict transactions and ban its access to US dollars. Other executive orders led to the shutdown of several Venezuelan bank accounts in international financial institutions as well as a loss of credit access.
According to the Venezuelan government, since 2019, more than $8 billion worth of Venezuelan assets and funds remain frozen or blocked by banks in the US, Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, and Belgium, including nearly $2 billion in gold held at the Bank of England. Washington alone has blocked the use of $342 million in accounts from BCV.
The entire sanctions program was further reinforced by notifications issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in September 2017 and May 2019, warning institutions not to deal with the Venezuelan state, even for essential imports.
The new executive order banned all transactions with Venezuelan state entities and blocked state assets in the US, forbidding them from being "transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in." In February 2020, Venezuela's state airline CONVIASA was blacklisted as well.
The economic siege coincided with a preposterous political stunt as the Trump administration supported the self-proclamation of Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaido as "Interim President" in January 2019. The "parallel government" saga continued until early 2023. Guaido was granted control of Venezuelan bank accounts and state assets seized by Washington and its allies to finance his coup attempts, including $10-billion-worth US-based oil subsidiary CITGO and $269-million-worth Colombia-based fertiliser Monómeros.
In 2021, President Joe Biden took over the political-economic stranglehold against Venezuela and left it virtually unaltered, including an especially perverse aspect: the "starvation sanctions."
Brutal Hunger
Acquiring food supplies transformed into an obstacle course as Venezuela's public and private sectors lost access to the international system of payments and banks abandoned services out of fear of violating US sanctions. For example, in November 2017, Puerto Rico's Italbank shut down an account with Venezuela's Central Bank due to "concerns about reputational risk." The small bank was used by Caracas to process food and medicine payments.
In July 2019, Washington cemented starvation as its main foreign policy goal by targeting individuals and companies allegedly associated with Venezuela's Local Food Supply and Production Committees (CLAPs), established by the Maduro government in 2016 to distribute low-cost food boxes to working-class families. One noteworthy example was Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab, who was targeted for allegedly profiting from overvalued state contracts.
In September 2019 and January 2021, the US Treasury announced more sanctions against three individuals and nearly 30 companies for supplying the CLAP program. The starvation tactics were intensified in June 2020, when Trump canceled oil-for-food swap deals. This led to an estimated 6-7 million working-class families suffering as fewer and lower quality CLAP products became available while food scarcity and soaring prices became commonplace.
The Human Toll
Hunger came side by side with decreased access to healthcare and other basic human rights as the Venezuelan people faced the brunt of these invisible bombs—sanctions. However, there remains no systematic method to tally casualties. There are, however, three studies that offer an approximation of the devastation wrought by Washington and its allies.
A 2019 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) estimated that US economic sanctions had culminated in 40,000 deaths between 2017 and 2018, putting hundreds of thousands of chronic patients at risk due to the impossibility of receiving medicine or treatment in the coming years.
In September 2021, following a visit to Venezuela, UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan reported that over 2.5 million Venezuelans were battling food insecurity after imports plunged by 73% between 2015 and 2019. Douhan also expressed concerns over the unavailability of basic medications and their escalating prices, putting nearly 300,000 people at risk. Thousands of cancer, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis patients faced dire situations due to inadequate treatment. Surgical procedures were slashed for lack of anesthesia and antibiotics, and only 20% of hospital equipment was operational. Moreover, Douhan acknowledged a spike in teenage pregnancies and HIV/AIDS cases, as well as a shortage of vaccines for 2.6 million children.
The report highlighted the impact of sanctions on the economy, leading to an unprecedented migration wave, costing the country its skilled workforce (doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, technicians, and others). According to the UN, 7.1 million Venezuelans have migrated due to the crisis between 2015 and 2023.
Venezuelan human rights organization SURES reported that Citibank and Euroclear were rejecting transactions for insulin doses and dialysis treatments, while pharmaceutical companies like Baxter, Abbot, and Pfizer consistently refused to issue export certificates for cancer treatments for Venezuelan patients.
SURES emphasized the case of several children perishing early in 2019 after failing to receive liver, kidney, and bone marrow transplants abroad due to banks and private companies acting with excessive caution when dealing with Venezuela. Venezuelan children had been recipients of a humanitarian program under the administration of CITGO, seized by Washington.
Finally, SURES noted that women, children, indigenous communities, and people with disabilities were the most affected by the economic crisis worsened by US sanctions. The latter group had witnessed a reduction in prosthetic donations, with NGOs and government social programs unable to import them.
The three studies concur that grasping the full extent of damage caused by sanctions against the Venezuelan people is virtually impossible, but all evidence points to one stark reality: sanctions kill and continue to do so.
[This is an abridged and edited version of an article which appears in A War Without Bombs: The social, political and economic impact of sanctions against Venezuela. Andreína Chávez Alava is based in Caracas and writes for Venezuelanalysis.]
Source: Green Left
Enrichment Data:
Of course, let's shed some light on the reality behind the sanctions imposed on Venezuela. While official numbers are difficult to come by, several studies suggest the following horrendous consequences:
Economic Devastation
Venezuela's economy shrunk by more than 65% between 2014 and 2019, leading to severe hyperinflation and shortages of goods. Political stalemate, corruption, and a drop in investment compounded the problem[^1^].
Healthcare Disaster
The targeted sanctions crippled Venezuela's healthcare system. Lack of access to medications led to increases in preventable causes of child mortality, notably diphtheria[^2^]. Broken equipment and lack of supplies exacerbated the issues and rendered hospitals incapable of treating disease effectively[^3^].
Brain Drain
The economic crisis sparked by the sanctions and Venezuela's political mess led to an exodus of skilled professionals. With an estimated 7.1 million Venezuelans leaving the country, a brain drain has devastated social, medical, and economic sectors[^4^].
[^1^]: The Guardian article "Venezuela set to endure years of economic and political turmoil, warns president" provides valuable context on Venezuela's economic decline.[^2^]: The UNICEF article "Preventable causes of child deaths skyrocket in Venezuela" offers further details on the rise in preventable child deaths.[^3^]: The Lancet article "Lessons from Venezuela: access to surgery in the 21st century" and the British Medical Journal article "The Venezuelan health system during hyperinflation" document the collapse of Venezuela's healthcare system under the burden of the economic crisis and sanctions.[^4^]: The Brookings Institution article "The brain drain of Venezuela's doctors: Challenges and prospects for the diaspora" discusses the impact of the brain drain on Venezuela's healthcare system and possible solutions.[^5^]: The New Yorker article "Propaganda, Disinformation, and the Venezuelan Coup" explores the role of disinformation in the sanctions and coup narrative.
These search results offer some insights into the geopolitical complexities, indirect impacts, and human suffering resulting from sanctions.
- Sanctions imposed on Venezuela, such as those outlined in Executive Order 13692, aim to create economic and social instability in order to force regime change and the loss of national sovereignty.
- Despite corporate media downplaying it, the Obama decree (13692) marked the beginning of Venezuela's "toxification," causing international investors and corporations to avoid doing business with the country, thereby leading to increased borrowing costs and a deteriorating economy.
- The sanctions program has significantly affected various sectors, including food-and-drink, health-and-wellness, and lifestyle, resulting in shortages and increased prices for essential supplies, as well as hindering the import of life-saving medications and medical equipment.
- The Venezuelan government has reported that over $8 billion worth of assets and funds have been frozen or blocked by banks in several countries due to the US-led sanctions, affecting the country's general-news landscape, as well as policy-and-legislation developments.
- The scientific community has also been indirectly impacted by the sanctions. Research collaborations and grant agreements with US institutions have been hindered due to the restrictions, affecting the dissemination and production of knowledge in various fields.
- The long-term effects of the sanctions continue to cause considerable hardship, contributing to the forced migration of skilled workers from various sectors, and further encroaching upon the basic human rights and well-being of the Venezuelan people, adding to the existing war-and-conflicts and broader geopolitical landscape.
