Visit us at Network2020.org.
On January 3rd, U.S. forces launched a military strike on Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and flying him to New York to face federal narco-terrorism charges. President Trump announced the U.S. would "run the country" until a transition of power could take place.
This episode was recorded before those events—but the conversation helps explain how we got here.
Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in Latin America. Between 2012 and 2020, it experienced the largest peacetime economic collapse ever documented—a 71% decline in per capita GDP. After Hugo Chávez built a system dependent on oil revenue, the crash in global oil prices triggered an economic freefall. Nicolás Maduro's increasingly authoritarian rule, combined with hyperinflation, shortages, and soaring crime, drove roughly a quarter of the population to flee. As the crisis deepened, the United States responded with sweeping economic sanctions, framing drug trafficking and mass migration as national security threats.
How did Venezuela reach this point? What role did U.S. policy play in the crisis? And was there ever a path toward stability that didn't end in military confrontation?
Today we're joined by Francisco Rodríguez, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Faculty Affiliate at the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies. He is the founder of Oil for Venezuela and author of The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012–2020.
