Is Trump Going to Let Venezuela Starve?

While Venezuela’s regime is getting by, thanks to its deference to Trump, it remains a repressive and corrupt force in the lives of those it ostensibly governs. Human rights groups on the scene estimate that it still holds nearly 800 political prisoners, many of whom were active in the opposition movement that actually won the 2024 election. The regime is releasing some of them slowly, but most are still locked up. Human Rights Watch has pointed out that “dozens have been held incommunicado for weeks, months, and some for over a year.” Before his release on January 22, Rafael Tudares—the son-in-law of 2024 election victor Edmundo González—was among the prisoners. Jailed for more than a year, he was regarded by human rights groups as a “hostage” of the regime.

The regime’s corruption also is contributing to the looming food crisis. Torrealba pointed out that Venezuela’s heavy dependence on imported corn and other foodstuffs has also raised risks because “our national import and distribution system has been riddled with corruption from 2012 onwards.” In other words, even the resumption of food shipments will not necessarily allow food to reach the people who are hungry.

The food emergency is descending on a nation that has been in acute crisis for more than a decade. During Trump’s first term, the U.S. followed the suggestions of right-wing Venezuelan exiles and declared economic war against the country, in the mistaken belief that the crisis would topple the regime. Instead, the economist Rodríguez has outlined in great detail how the U.S. onslaught, along with criminal mismanagement by the Maduro government, detonated the greatest economic collapse in any nation in recent history that was not the result of an actual war. Some eight million people have already fled, a quarter of Venezuela’s pre-crisis population—and that desperate exodus could soon restart.