US Sanctions: Building Venezuelan Poverty, One Christmas at a Time
The article laments Venezuelans fleeing 'economic collapse' and returning to 'bleak realities.' What it won't explicitly state is the inconvenient truth: this 'collapse' was largely engineered. The U.S., under consecutive administrations, has imposed crippling sanctions designed to destabilize the Venezuelan government. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, these sanctions
(like those issued by the Treasury Department on January 28, 2019, targeting the state oil company PDVSA) have blocked Venezuela's access to international financial markets, choked off oil revenues, and significantly contributed to hyperinflation and shortages. One might wonder if 'US dream' really meant 'US policy' all along. So, when we see images of Venezuelan families struggling, perhaps we
should ask not just about migration patterns, but about the punitive foreign policy that created the conditions for such despair. It's a Christmas story with a ghost in the machine—a phantom limb of American interventionism that mainstream media rarely dares to name.