American Intervention in Venezuela

 

Introduction

On Jan. 3, Donald Trump announced that U.S. officials had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and taken him to New York on drug-trafficking charges. Commonly referred to as dictator by the international community, Maduro has faced domestic and global condemnation during his 12 years in power for rigging elections, disenfranchising voters, imprisoning opposition leaders, and, as alleged by the U.S. Department of State, leading a drug cartel.

 

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the recent events in Venezuela, it’s worth a quick look at its history. Throughout Venezuela’s history, from the country’s birth under Spanish colonialism to Simón Bolívar and the Spanish American wars of independence and into the present, the country’s political and economic history has been significantly influenced by the foreign intervention of world powers.

A Brief History of Venezuela

Venezuela was initially inhabited by indigenous people, first Amerindians and the later the Awarak and Carib. In the late 15^th century, searching for the famous lost city of El Dorado, the Spanish grew increasingly involved in the region leading to the first permanent Spanish settlement in present day Cumaná. Venezuela would formally become a colony of Spain around 1522 with the Spanish monarchy continuing to rule over Venezuela into the nineteenth century. Under Spanish control, nonwhites in the country were enslaved or forced into labor on coffee and cocoa plantations, the main source of economic production in Venezuela’s colonial economy.

In 1797, drawing inspiration from the Enlightenment and revolution movements elsewhere, a group of Venezuelan Creoles revolted against Spanish rule. Though the uprising was easily suppressed, it would be a precursor to the Spanish American wars of independence fought to end Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. Famed revolutionary, Simón Bolívar, or “El Libertador”, was one of the leading figures in the Spanish American wars of independence and in 1813 appointed commander of the revolutionary Venezuelan forces. These forces would ultimately defeat Spanish royalist forces in battles across northern South America, effectively ending colonial rule in the region. By 1819, revolutionaries declared this region the Republic of Gran Colombia and appointed Bolívar as president. Inspired by a vision of a united Latin America, Bolívar led his army to liberate Peru from Spanish rule. Joining forces with Argentinian revolutionary José de San Martin, the two definitively ended Spanish colonial rule in South America.

Bolívar resigned as President of Gran Colombia in May 1830 and would die later that year. Following Bolívar’s death, Venezuela became an independent country and was ruled by a series of military dictatorships. General José Antonio Páez was Venezuela’s dominant political figure by this time, and his rule was marked by relative political and economic stability in Venezuela. However, this was short-lived — under the rule of successor General José Tadeo Monagas and his brother, the country stagnated economically and the period was characterized by rampant corruption, political violence, and oppression. Food shortages and an economic crisis led to the famous March Revolution of 1858, during which leader Julián Castro led a coup d'état to overthrow the Monagas Dynasty. By 1864, new leaders and a new constitution had been installed.

The era of political chaos and dictatorship continued through the early 20^th century under leaders such as Antonio Guzmán Blanco, General Cipriano Castro, and General Juan Vicente Gómez. General Gómez was particularly infamous for propagating racist ideology under the label of “Democratic Caesarism," which argued that dictatorship was beneficial for nonwhite Venezuelans. In 1928, students at the Central University of Venezuela formed a movement known as “Generation of 1928” to protest the 20-year Juan Vicente Gómez dictatorship. Many protestors suffered imprisonment and exile. When Gómez died in 1935, his family, friends, and collaborators faced intense scrutiny from the Venezuelan people and government, who confiscated their assets.

 

In the “October Revolution” of 1945, a Venezuelan political party known as the social-democratic Acción Democrática staged a coup with the help of military officers and installed Rómulo Betancourt as president. In 1947, during Betancourt’s presidency, universal suffrage was codified into the Venezuelan constitution, and, in 1958, Betancourt would become the first democratically elected Venezuelan president to complete his full term and peacefully hand over power. During the 1960s, Venezuela’s GDP began to increase dramatically as a result of its large and highly productive oil reserves which are reported to be the largest oil reserves in the world. At the time, the U.S. was the largest foreign investor in many of the country’s sectors, including petroleum and mining. Though Venezuela’s economic conditions were improving, the political situation remained unstable.

 

In 1983, military officer Hugo Chavez established the leftist Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, which drew on Bolívar’s belief in a unified Latin America. Following two unsuccessful attempts at coups in 1992, Chavez was elected president in 1998 on promises to end corruption, eliminate poverty, and renovate Venezuela’s political system to provide more opportunities for independent political parties. When Chavez became president, the country was suffering severe economic recession stemming from low oil prices and political corruption.

Upon election, Chavez launched an antipoverty campaign, as well as political and constitutional reforms (including an increase in presidential power and an act to outlaw government financing of opposing parties’ electoral campaigns). He won reelection in 2000 on similar promises. However, in 2002, a coup was staged against him in opposition to his appointing political allies to major posts in government-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). During this coup, Chavez was overthrown by members of military high command but was soon reinstalled by the Presidential Guard.

In the following years, protests and petitions to oppose Chavez arose throughout Venezuela — including a protest by PDVSA and a petition with over 2.7 million signers. During this period, U.S. – Venezuela relations, which were historically positive and characterized by close cooperation on trade and joint efforts to curb the distribution of narcotics, became increasingly tense due to Chavez’s anti-American rhetoric and his friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In 2006, Chavez began to strengthen relations with Iran, Russia, and China while providing generous oil deals to various countries in the Americas. Following increased anti-American rhetoric, Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela in 2008 as an act of solidarity with the Bolivian president, who claimed that the United States was organizing a coup to remove him from power. The U.S., in turn, imposed sanctions on Venezuelan officials whom they claimed were involved in narco-terrorism. By the latter half of the 2000s, the U.S. reported an increase in drug trafficking from Venezuela, while surveys reported widespread corruption in the Venezuelan government.

 

In 2012, Chavez chose Nicolás Maduro, a foreign minister at the time, as his vice president after being reelected for a fourth term. A year later, he succumbed to cancer, and ensuing elections culminated in a narrow win for Maduro. Maduro’s government was highly dependent on the loyalty and patronage of PDVSA. With a rise in deficits, the Central Bank of Venezuela was ordered by government authorities to print more money, resulting in inflation of over 65,000% in 2018 and other massive economic consequences that reduced Venezuela’s GDP by roughly 80%. Maduro is also alleged to have been involved with the Cartel of the Suns, a drug-trafficking organization, and in narco-terrorism with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

 

As a result of the crisis caused by Maduro’s policies, millions of Venezuelans fled the country, seeking refuge in the U.S. and Latin America to escape the devastation. Maduro attempted to maintain the guise of Venezuela’s democratic elections in 2024 while his regime imposed countless restrictions on the election process, ultimately delegitimizing the election outcome.

American Intervention: Looking Ahead

Throughout its history, Venezuela, and all South America, has been a target of foreign exploitation. From Spanish colonialism in the 16^th century to American oil investments in the 20^th and 21^st centuries, the region’s turmoil has originated with and been worsened by international intervention in its economic production and political affairs. While revolutionaries such as Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chavez attempted to limit foreign access to Venezuelan resources and assert the nation’s independence, the country has continued to suffer from a political and economic system that was formulated in the wake of colonialism and exploited by imperialism.

The U.S.’s launch of Operation Absolute Resolve — in which forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores — has all the appearances of being a continuation of this trend. While many Venezuelans celebrated Maduro’s removal, the road ahead remains uncertain, as does the nature of American intervention in the region. Currently, the U.S. has no troops on the ground and is maintaining a strong relationship with acting president Delcy Rodríguez. However, recent actions by the U.S. to commandeer oil tankers carrying Venezuelan Oil and seize control of Venezuelan oil sales should raise eyebrows as it smells and looks a lot like modern imperialism. Rodríguez’s presidency also appears to lack legitimacy and be highly influenced by American interests — President Trump warned her in early January that she may suffer a fate worse than Maduro’s if she does not adhere to his demands. Rhetoric from the U.S. government suggests that the U.S. is exerting meaningful control over the Venezuelan government and taking actions that may not be operating in the best interests of Venezuela or its people.

 

President Trump has also resisted to move for hosting free democratic elections in Venezuela. Rather, he recently proposed that the U.S. run the country for several years. Various American politicians have voiced concerns with this plan, arguing that Venezuelan elections must take place sooner rather than later to avoid the entrenchment of an illegitimate authoritarian regime in the nation. The future of Venezuela is uncertain, as is the nature of American intervention in the country’s politics and in the nation’s oil & gas industry. Whether the U.S. extricates itself from the nation or continues to exert control on the country’s politics and economy remains to be seen.

 

While President Trump’s intervention in early January was celebrated by many Venezuelans in the U.S., it must also be viewed in the context of the country’s history and to a large extent the history of Americas. Much of European and, more recently, American intervention in the Americas has been primarily motivated to gain access to the valuable economic resources of the region. Many of the policies enacted under foreign intervention throughout the history of the Americas – from slavery, to coups, to assassinations – have protected foreign assets and investment, but have not benefited the people living in those countries affected. The current foreign intervention by the U.S. in Venezuela – forced regime change, oil seizures, control of Venezuelan oil & gas industry – feels all too similar. U.S. actions also seem to starkly contrast the American ideals of democracy and free market capitalism. Though Venezuela has recently pushed back on American demands for oil production, asserting its claim to independence, it remains to be seen whether U.S. intervention will proceed in the interests of Venezuela and its people. Regardless, the democratic and libertarian market principles that underpin American society predicate that free elections in Venezuela be held as soon as possible and that as a sovereign country Venezuela should be able to conduct commerce and control the sale of its oil & gas and mineral wealth on its own accord.