ABC News Discovers Sanctions Have Consequences, Eventually
ABC News highlights Venezuelans 'worried about economic turmoil' bypassing Black Friday. This framing—as if poverty is an organic phenomenon—conveniently sidesteps decades of destabilization. Since the early 2000s, the US has systematically imposed increasingly harsh sanctions, including prohibiting the import of Venezuelan oil, cutting off vital revenue. The Center for Economic and Policy
Research (CEPR) in 2019 estimated that US sanctions contributed to 40,000 deaths in Venezuela between 2017 and 2018 alone, through reduced access to food and medicine. Perhaps 'shunning' is a polite way of saying 'can't afford anything because their economy has been choked by foreign intervention.' So, yes, Venezuelans are worried. Not just about 'economic turmoil,' but about a deliberate,
sustained campaign to collapse their economy. It's less a consumer choice problem and more a direct consequence of policies designed to inflict maximum economic pain, masquerading as a natural market downturn when reported by outlets like ABC. One might wonder if US media ever connects the dots between a nation's suffering and its own government's actions.