| |  | | President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the U.S. government was revoking concessions granted to energy giant Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil. The move, which reversed a 2022 decision by Biden to allow the company to bring Venezuelan oil to U.S. markets by exempting it from economic sanctions, removes one of the country’s few economic lifelines at a time of deepening crisis. In his post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that the Venezuelan government had failed to keep up its side of the original bargain to meet “electoral conditions.” He also argued that the “regime has not been transporting the violent criminals they sent” to the United States at the “rapid pace that they had agreed to.” The fate of Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, has long been tied to its oil sector. Not all of the country’s economic issues can be blamed on foreign actors: mismanagement, declining global prices, and a dependence of up to 90 percent of exports on the commodity are crucial parts of that story. Nevertheless, U.S. sanctions, a bipartisan staple of U.S. foreign policy in recent years, is responsible for more than half of the largest documented economic contraction in the history of the Western hemisphere. While sanctions against the country go back to the mid-2000s, in 2017, the first Trump administration slapped crippling economic sanctions on large swaths of the Venezuelan economy that, according to studies by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), killed tens of thousands of civilians. Two years later, during the country’s political stalemate, the Trump administration ratcheted up the tension by imposing its most crippling sanctions to date. Its targeting of state-run oil facilities and freezing of the country’s U.S. assets sent the country’s economy into an even deeper tailspin. Further restrictions against the country’s foreign oil partners in 2020 only exacerbated the crisis. Initially, the Biden administration kept up much of the pressure and continued the failed policy of recognizing “interim President” Juan Guaidó. In 2022, Biden granted the waiver to Chevron in order to incentivize Maduro to negotiate with the opposition, and in response to concerns of rising energy prices linked to the war in Ukraine. In October 2023, the Biden administration removed even more sanctions after the Maduro government agreed to hold elections. While the administration reimposed sanctions against some Venezuelan officials after the country’s 2024 elections, widely viewed as fraudulent, the Chevron waiver had remained in place, much to the chagrin of the opposition. In the debate about whether to revoke Chevron’s waiver, migration has played a key role. In 2024, Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodriguez estimated that up to 800,000 more people would leave the country if Chevron lost its waiver. The number, while high, is backed by other studies. Rodriguez also found that upwards of 4 million people would have chosen to stay in the country if not for the devastating impacts of U.S. sanctions. The new policy is at odds with the Trump administration's recent moves to open dialogue with the Maduro government. Richard Grenell, an adviser to Trump, visited Venezuela last month and secured the release of six U.S. citizens detained by the Maduro government. Maduro spoke of his meeting with Grenell in glowing terms and used the occasion to propose a reset of relations between the two countries. That reset looked to be under way after the Venezuelan government agreed to accept deportees for the first time in years. Trump did not provide evidence for the claim that the Maduro government is not accepting Venezuelan deportees at a fast enough rate. Just last week, Venezuela accepted more than 170 deportees who had spent time at the migrant detention center in Guantánamo Bay. Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez called the Chevron revocation a “harmful and inexplicable decision” and warned that it would lead more Venezuelan migrants to leave for the United States. |
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| We can’t wait to share this historic issue of the NACLA Report with our print subscribers. The issue includes contributors at the helm of movements for trans and travesti liberation in the Americas, providing crucial perspectives as attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights and people surge across the hemisphere. We’re almost ready to share this issue with our readers, but we need your help to carry us over the finish line. Our modest print budget is not robust enough to support the bold vision and collaborative nature of this important issue. Will you donate today to help cover the cost of production? Donors who are not print subscribers and who give $100 or more by March 9, 2025 will receive a complimentary issue of “Cuerpos Furiosos: Travesti-Trans Politics in Revolt.” |
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| | | | | | | | |  | Musicians from the Paraíso do Tuiuti samba school rehearse ahead of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival Parade next week. See more in Constance Malleret's piece for NACLA on Tuiut's trans forward parade. (Constance Malleret) |
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CARTEL LEADERS SENT TO THE UNITED STATES — On Thursday, the Mexican government began sending to the United States upwards of 30 top cartel operatives who are wanted by U.S. authorities. While the Mexican foreign ministry released a statement claiming that it was part of the normal “coordination, cooperation, and bilateral reciprocity” between the two countries, the move came during a moment of heightened tensions. A high-level delegation of Mexican officials are in Washington this week to discuss a security deal that, according to The New York Times, comes as key members of Trump’s cabinet are floating the possibility of using the U.S. military to take the fight against cartels directly onto Mexican soil. The talks also revolve around the issue of a 25 percent tariff on Mexican (and Canadian) goods which is set to go into effect on March 4. In early February, Trump announced a 30 day pause on the tariffs after the Mexican government agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to its borders. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has consistently stressed that respect for her country’s sovereignty is non-negotiable, expressed optimism that the tariffs could be avoided. -
A NEW PARAMILITARY FORCE IN NICARAGUA — A report published by the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warns that the government is decimating the country’s few remaining checks and balances and cementing its “total control of the country through severe human rights violations.” The report argues that, since the government's 2018 crackdown on protesters, the “state and the ruling Sandinista party have virtually fused into a unified machine of repression.” The Nicaraguan government took a further step towards bolstering that machine on Wednesday. During a massive ceremony in Managua, President Daniel Ortega, alongside his wife and recently-appointed “co-president” Rosario Murillo, swore in 30,000 hooded civilians as part of a new “volunteer police” force. A UN expert warned that the force, composed of ex-combatants, retired soldiers, judges, and public employees, evokes the “nefarious role of masked groups that led the lethal repression” of the 2018 protests. The crackdown on those protests, which the Nicaraguan government considers a coup attempt sponsored by the United States, left 300 dead. While the extent to which the United States is or is not actively seeking regime change in Nicaragua is up for debate, the country has been subject to economic sanctions that have mostly affected the poor and failed to achieve their stated political goals. |
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FOREST FIRES AND MAPUCHE REPRESSION IN ARGENTINA—Several new forest fires broke out this week in the Argentine Patagonia, a region that has been battling brutal fires for weeks. Since January, more than 35,000 hectares have burned in the region. According to reporting by The Guardian, authorities have responded by “removing environmental protections and raiding Indigenous communities.” Instead of confronting the overtourism, industrial tree plantations, and inadequate maintenance of electrical infrastructure that is driving the fires, authorities have pointed the finger at shadowy “criminals.” In recent weeks, the government has launched an unprecedented crackdown on local Mapuche communities. Security forces have confiscated books, jailed prominent leaders, shut down local radio stations, and targeted environmental activists. Since coming to power in December of 2023, President Javier Milei, who has called climate change a “socialist lie,” slashed the budgets of the environmental agencies that deal with fire prevention. Patagonia is not the only affected area. In the first few months of 2025, the country has already lost 150,000 hectares in forest fires that have spread from the north to the south. The fires have displaced entire communities and killed two people. -
SOCIAL SECURITY REFORMS AND MINES IN PANAMA—Panamanian President Jose Mulino announced that he would delay a decision on the future of Panama’s Donoso copper mine until after he completes his anticipated reform of the country’s social security system. Law 163, which, among other things, seeks to privatize the social security system and raise the retirement age, has drawn large scale protests and a brutal police crackdown. Saul Mendéz, the general secretary of the construction workers’ union, announced on Thursday that mobilizations in the vicinity of Congress would continue as lawmakers debate the reforms. Mendéz also warned that the union would continue to oppose the re-opening of the Donoso copper mine, a project that was shut down in 2023 in the face of massive environmental protests against the mining concession. The issue recently returned to the spotlight as the company behind it has launched a massive public relations campaign. The Canadian company, First Quantum, has been effective: according to polling from December, support for shutting down the mine has plummeted to 44 percent, down from 81 percent the year before. The open-pit copper and gold mine, which once provided nearly 5 percent of the country’s GDP, is being left to waste away, poisoning the water supply of nearby indigenous communities. |
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