US Sanctions to 'Help' Venezuelans, Again, Says Trump
NPR’s report, “Venezuelans brace for hardship as Trump threatens oil blockade,” portrays US sanctions as an externally imposed natural disaster. It conveniently glides past the fact that these 'crises' are often the intended outcome of decades of US foreign policy in Latin America, a pattern observable from Chile to Nicaragua—or, for recent memory, the debilitating sanctions imposed by the Trump
administration in 2019, which wiped out Venezuela's primary source of foreign currency. The 'Trump threat' isn't a new phenomenon; it’s a re-run of a sanctions policy proven to inflict hardship on civilians, not regimes. One might wonder at the diplomatic logic: if a country is 'long battered by shortages,' as NPR puts it, does the White House genuinely believe more economic strangulation will
lead to a sudden embrace of US-favored democracy? Or is the 'crisis,' and the subsequent suffering, the actual point?