From Latin America’s richest country 100 years ago to a founding member of OPEC, the long history of Venezuela and the United States’ oil ties, explained
American companies were ready to invest billions to modernize Venezuela’s crumbling oil infrastructure, he said, and “start making money for the country.” Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, surpassing Saudi Arabia with 303 billion barrels, or about 20% of global reserves.
If this were to happen – and that’s a very big “if” – it would mark the end of a contentious relationship that began nearly 30 years ago.
Yes, the Trump administration’s military action in Venezuela was unprecedented in many ways. But this was not surprising given Venezuela’s immense oil wealth and the historic U.S.-Venezuela relationship under former President Hugo Chávez and Maduro.
Venezuela is a republic of about 30 million people located on the northern coast of South America, about twice the size of California. For much of the early 20th century, it was considered the richest country in South America due to its oil reserves.
Foreign companies, including those from the United States, have invested heavily in the growth of Venezuelan oil and played an important role in its policy. However, in the face of American opposition, Venezuelan leaders began to assert more control over their main export resource. Venezuela played a key role in the creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960 and nationalized much of its oil industry in 1976.
This has negatively impacted U.S. companies like ExxonMobil and fueled the Trump administration’s recent claims that Venezuela “stole” U.S. oil.
However, economic prosperity has not followed for most Venezuelans. Mismanagement of the oil industry led to a debt crisis and intervention by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1988. Caracas erupted in protests in February 1989 and the government sent in the army to crush the uprising. According to official figures, around 300 people were killed, but the real figure could be 10 times higher.
Subsequently, Venezuelan society became further divided between the wealthy, who wanted to work with the United States, and the working class, who sought autonomy from the United States. This division has defined Venezuelan politics ever since.
Chávez’s rise to power
Hugo Chávez began his career as a military officer. In the early 1980s, he formed the “Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200” within the army and began giving rousing lectures against the government.
Then, after the 1989 riots, Chávez’s recruitment efforts intensified significantly and he began planning the overthrow of the Venezuelan government. In February 1992, he staged a failed coup against pro-American President Carlos Andrés Pérez. While imprisoned, his group staged another coup attempt later that year, which also failed. Chavez was imprisoned for two years, but became the leading presidential candidate in 1998 on a revolutionary socialist platform.
Chávez has become a giant in Venezuelan and Latin American politics. His revolution evokes the memory of Simón Bolívar, the great liberator of South America from Spanish colonialism. Not only was Chávez very popular in Venezuela for his use of oil revenues to subsidize government food, health, and education programs, but he was also highly regarded by like-minded regimes in the region because of his generosity.
Most notably, Chávez supplied Cuba with billions of dollars of oil in exchange for tens of thousands of Cuban doctors working in Venezuelan health clinics.
He also set a precedent for opposing the United States and the IMF at global forums, calling then-US President George W. Bush “the devil” at the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.
US accused of plotting coup
Not surprisingly, the United States was not a fan of Chávez.
After hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters took to the streets in April 2002, Chávez was briefly ousted in a coup led by dissident military officers and opposition figures, who installed a new president, businessman Pedro Carmona. Chávez was arrested, the Bush administration immediately recognized Carmona as president and the The New York Times The editorial page celebrated the fall of a “potential dictator.”
However, Chávez returned to power two days later, thanks to legions of supporters filling the streets. And the Bush administration immediately came under scrutiny for its possible role in the failed coup.
While the United States has denied any involvement, questions persisted for years about whether the government had advance knowledge of the coup and tacitly supported its ouster. In 2004, newly classified documents showed that the CIA knew about the plot, but it was unclear to what extent U.S. officials had warned Chavez himself.
American pressure continues on Maduro
Maduro, a trade unionist, was elected to the National Assembly in 2000 and quickly joined Chávez’s inner circle. He rose to the post of vice president in 2012 and, after Chávez’s death the following year, won his first election by a razor-thin margin.
But Maduro is not Chávez. He did not enjoy the same level of support within the working class, the military or the region. Venezuela’s economic conditions have deteriorated and inflation has soared.
And successive US administrations have continued to pressure Maduro. Venezuela has been hit by sanctions under Presidents Obama and Trump, and the United States and its allies have refused to recognize Maduro’s victory in the 2018 elections and again in 2024.
Isolated from much of the world, Maduro’s government has become dependent on selling oil to China as its only economic outlet. Maduro also claims to have foiled several coup and assassination attempts allegedly involving the United States and the domestic opposition, including in April 2019 and May 2020, during Trump’s first term.
US officials have denied involvement in any coup plot; reports also found no evidence of US involvement in the failed 2020 coup.
Today, Trump managed to eliminate Maduro in a much more brazen operation, without any attempt at denial. It remains to be seen how Venezuelans and other Latin American countries will react to U.S. actions, but one thing is certain: U.S. involvement in Venezuelan politics will continue, as long as it has financial interests in the country.
James Trapani, Associate Lecturer in History and International Relations, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
