Before 2017, Venezuela relied on its oil revenue for 95% of its export earnings. Moreover, oil revenue has been critical for financing the government’s progressive social agenda. This loss has caused inflation in Venezuela to soar: according to official Central Bank of Venezuela numbers from 2019, the highest inter-annual inflation rate was 344,510%, meaning prices increased by a factor of 3,400 in a single year. This is an unimaginable disaster for any country and an enormous strain on the population.

While Venezuela has been under attack by the US government and its allies since Hugo Chávez’s first election in 1998, Trump’s 2017 Executive Order 13808 set off a new wave of financial sanctions that denied Venezuela access to international credit markets, severely undermining its ability to sell oil abroad.

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