As if Venezuela’s economic woes were not enough to demand the full-time attention of President Nicholas Maduro and his government, the administration in Caracas must contend as well with the pressures of working out just how it extricates 18.1 million barrels of the country’s oil stuck at sea on an estimated sixteen tankers from the grip of United States-imposed sanctions that international refiners, mindful of threatened penalties by the Donald Trump administration, are avoiding like the proverbial plague.
What is described as “shipping data” that provides these astonishing figures underscores the extent to which the Maduro administration is being denied access to the country’s main source of revenue solely on account of Washington’s disapproval of its ideological leanings.
So severe is the squeeze that Washing-ton has put on Venezuela’s oil-driven economy that the country’s exports are reportedly perilously close to their lowest levels in more than 70 years, a circumstance that has led to a chaotic economic collapse, a slide into crippling poverty, and mass cross-border migration to neighbouring countries.