Reports

The geopolitics of the Caribbean region is dominated by natural resources, disputes over sovereignty and the growing salience of national identities. Oil-dependent Venezuela is in steep decline but sustained by allies, while an underdeveloped Guyana is expecting a major energy windfall. In the long term, China will use both carrot ...

With two months to go until the 2020 presidential election, U.S. policy on Venezuela faces new urgency. While the country has been used as a political football for domestic reasons, the crisis in Venezuela has serious consequences for the interests of America and its regional partners. Resolving that crisis is ...

In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is surreptitiously selling off oil assets. The EU is trying to set up negotiations between the government and the opposition. The U.S. is pushing for regime change. All of these attempts to solve the Venezuelan crisis fail to address a crucial factor: the growing suffering ...

The humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela continues with no end in sight. Negotiations between the increasingly desperate government of Nicolas Maduro and the opposition were interrupted. With international involvement, free and fair elections could occur, but before that happens, the question of what to do with President Maduro and ...

Just a few years ago, China was going all-in in Latin America, making huge investments and cozying up to governments that did not get along with Washington. Yet instability in Venezuela and a new government in Ecuador have exposed Beijing to greater risk. While China is still deepening ties with ...

Bankrupt and in an economic freefall, Venezuela has become the scene of a humanitarian drama. The opposition is finally unified and appears close to being able to push the die-hard Chavista regime out. Much of the outside world, including Latin America, Europe and the United States, is eager to help, ...

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest oil reserves but it is not even one of the top 10 global oil producers – and output is falling sharply. Socialist, resource-nationalist policies implemented by former President Hugo Chavez – and continued by President Nicolas Maduro today – are behind the country’s poor ...

The Chinese government is reportedly considering helping Venezuela’s government meet its most pressing domestic needs and start rebuilding the nation’s hydrocarbons industry. The United States, meanwhile, is hinting that it could use force to remove the increasingly brutal regime. Collective pressure on Caracas from the Latin American community, however, remains ...

Venezuela’s crisis will only end when there is a clear exit path for President Nicolas Maduro and his cohorts, and a unified, viable opposition that could take power. So far, neither of those have materialized, meaning Venezuela’s crisis will likely not end anytime soon. When it does, it will be ...

What will happen to Venezuela after the government tries to steal an unconstitutional presidential election on May 20? Everything depends on the cohesion of the splintered opposition and the determination of the international community. If either fail, the Western hemisphere could be faced with its most severe humanitarian crisis in ...

Venezuela failed to pay last month $1.1 billion in interest due on three different government bonds. China’s state-controlled banks are the largest holders of Venezuelan government debt, sitting on more than $60 billion of the $143 billion total. Aside from creating a tense situation in the world of international finance, ...

Venezuela’s constitutional coup has cleared the way from President Nicolas Maduro to suppress the opposition. But with the economy in tatters, the death toll in street protests rising, and the officer corps on the verge of splintering, the government may be more open to international mediation than first appears. The ...

The government of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela is under pressure from all sides: growing discontent at home, increasing calls for change from the international community and shrinking revenue. Still, it refuses to budge, and is meeting resistance with violence. The killing of a musician could be a turning point ...

The world's richest country in oil reserves is on the verge of becoming a failed state. After more than a half-century of social harmony funded by oil revenue, a socialist variant of caudillismo has run the country into the ground. Yet political changes are blocked by a determined military junta, ...

A financial noose is tightening around Venezuela's ruling party. Sovereign default is now imminent and U.S. court judgments have exposed the country's international assets to seizure. Without international mediation, President Nicolas Maduro will have to turn to the military for a potentially bloody crackdown.

Venezuela is back from the brink. Over the past six months, Nicolas Maduro has outsmarted the opposition, used a bond swap to stave off default, and coopted the top military brass to prevent a coup. If the president can only find a way to revive oil output, he may be ...

Venezuela's economy has crashed and burned, and along with it a certain commodity-fueled model of development. Socialists everywhere would do well to take notice.

Venezuela is in dire straits, with its economy contracting, its oil income falling and supplies of food and medicine dwindling. Against this backdrop, President Nicolas Maduro is resisting a recall referendum and installing generals in the top posts around him. Because he allows the military to profit from drug trafficking, ...

Venezuela’s national oil company cannot pay its bills. Supplies of food and medicine are dwindling. A malaria epidemic looms. Some 500,000 took to the streets of Caracas in protest. Meanwhile, President Nicolas Maduro is stalling a recall vote and packing top government posts with military men. How long can this ...

Venezuela desperately needs an outside mediator to help resolve its crisis before the country descends into violent street protests and bloodshed. But the OAS might not be the best choice.

Venezuelans must cope with the world’s highest inflation rate, severe shortages of basic goods and rolling blackouts. Most want President Nicolas Maduro out, and the opposition is pushing for a recall vote. But Mr. Maduro shows no signs of caving, even under international pressure.

Thirty years ago, Moises Naim and Ramon Pinango published El Caso Venezuela (1984), a study concluding that Venezuela enjoyed a false sense of social harmony financed by revenue from crude oil exports. They pointed out that the country’s extraordinary mineral wealth had encouraged an increasingly corrupt and inefficient political leadership ...

Every region of the world since the end of the Cold War has seen examples of regimes that operate within a legal and constitutional framework, but attempt to rig the system to stay in power. This has been called ‘competitive authoritarianism’ because some competition is allowed, but leaders attempt to ...

The twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago have done a fine job of harnessing their oil and gas wealth in recent decades, avoiding the ‘resource curse’ and using them as a base to develop related industries. Today’s challenge is to find similarly wise solutions to two potential threats. One, domestic: ...