Buhhh paper

Venezuelan Problems, American Solutions.

Venezuela is a nation that has been ravaged by bad economic choices and corruption at the highest level of its government for decades.  In Venezuela, something as simple as a dozen eggs currently costs the equivalent of 150 US dollars (CNN). Due to these insane prices for essential items, most Venezuelan citizens are unable to acquire food or medicine through legal means, with some resorting to use of illegal black markets. Many have also found themselves enduring rolling power outages and a lack of clean drinking water. The country is quickly descending into chaos because of these staggering problems, with massive civilian protests and underground criminal activity becoming more and more commonplace. The Venezuelan government does not seem to be working very hard to save their country from total economic ruin, opting instead to print enormous amounts of paper money and artificially control the exchange rate, which has caused hyper-inflation and decreased the value of 100 Bolivars (the Venezuelan currency) to fewer than three American cents. This is still going on at this very moment, with some sources claiming that the Bolivar’s value is plummeting by as much as 60 percent monthly (Yahoo). Another massive issue facing the Venezuelan people is the widespread and severe corruption to be found within the Venezuelan government.  Some examples of this corruption include tens of billions of dollars of the nation’s oil revenue being misappropriated, high ranking military officials and military commanders trafficking illegal narcotics, leaders indefinitely prolonging their time in office by amending the Venezuelan constitution, and crooked politicians jailing their opposition (Cato). These elements combined have resulted in an uncertain future for Venezuela, but one thing is clear: in one form or another, change is on the horizon.

For the Government of the United States, all of these factors culminate into one difficult question: what, if anything, should the United States of America do to alleviate the problems ailing this nation? For several years, relations between the US and Venezuela have been seriously strained. American diplomats have seemingly failed to appeal to Venezuela’s government, and have been ejected from the country on several occasions for a wide range of arbitrary reasons.  Likewise, the United States has ejected Venezuelan diplomats in response to the hostile attitude of the Venezuelan Government toward them, and in response to Venezuela ejecting American diplomats.  There is no American ambassador to Venezuela at the moment, nor is there a Venezuelan ambassador to America. Before socialist leader Hugo Chavez and his administration took over the country in 1999, relations were stronger between the two nations. After his rise to power, there was a natural adversity between the nations that could simply be attributed to the difference in ideology. However, when an attempted coup was enacted against the regime of Hugo Chavez in 2002, the Venezuelan government was quick to accuse George W. Bush’s presidential administration of supporting it. This fueled animosity between the USA and Venezuela until 2008, when diplomatic relations were entirely cut off by Venezuela. United States President Barack Obama reinstituted diplomatic relations with Venezuela in 2009, but after widespread government abuse of protestors became apparent in the streets of Venezuela between 2014 and 2015, the United States imposed a number of economic sanctions on Venezuela’s government. Soon after, serious accusations made by Venezuela of the United States attempting to instigate another coup did nothing to calm the situation, either (BBC). With United States-Venezuela relations currently the worst they have been in history, there are a handful of different courses of action that the American Government could take.

First and foremost, the easiest solution: doing nothing. If the United States Government does not take any further action regarding Venezuela’s state of crisis, the status quo of the country will be maintained, for better or worse. Whether the nation changes on its own or not, a lack of further intervention leaves the United States with everything to gain and nothing to lose.  In spite of the massive amount of oil they export, Venezuela is a fairly small contributor to the global economy, with a low gross domestic product compared to other nearby South American countries such as Brazil and Mexico.  Because of this, the Venezuelan economy collapsing does not mean much for the rest of the world from a financial standpoint. It is a win-win scenario for the United States if they do not intervene any further, because the regime that is responsible for the status quo in Venezuela will either become weak and irrelevant by staying on their current self-destructive path, or the country will become more beneficial for America by developing more cooperative and effective economic policies. Doing nothing is not without its drawbacks, however. This option, though it is the safest bet for America, does not guarantee any kind of immediate assistance to the troubled population of Venezuela directly. The humanitarian consequences for doing nothing could be immense, as Venezuela may soon run out of cash reserves to pay off international debts; if Venezuela cannot pay off its debts and cannot borrow more money, it could become impossible for their Government to bring in enough food, medicine, and other essential supplies to prevent mass hunger and illness.  Also, if Venezuela cannot pay its police force, the already rampant crime rate is guaranteed to become even more serious.  Venezuela is already a major hot spot for human trafficking and similar criminal activity, so this kind of dramatic decrease in law enforcement would be absolutely catastrophic for the citizens of Venezuela.  However, America’s government doing nothing also has the potential to result in the nation helping itself. If left undisturbed by foreign powers, the economic downward spiral that Venezuela is experiencing is quite likely to eventually result in a military coup or popular uprising against the failing government. This could put in its place a much more effective system of government for the Venezuelan people. In short, this option is the best choice for the United States, and it has a chance of helping Venezuela in the long run, but some aspects of it could be considered questionable from a humanitarian perspective.

Another path the United States government could take would be to go to the United Nations and try to form an international consensus against Venezuela’s current economic policies, and encourage some serious reforms. This would be a proactive approach, and there’s a chance that it would be a diplomatic success, but the main issue is as follows: America stands to lose capital by intervening in Venezuela with no benefit to itself.  The Venezuelan people are hurting, so from a humanitarian perspective American intervention in the form of foreign aid programs and foreign aid money would be the right thing to do, but this begs the question: Just because America is the most powerful nation in the world, does its government really have a moral responsibility to assist the Venezuelan government and peoples? The answer to that question varies widely among America’s politicians as well as its citizens. However, if America’s prior engagements with failing nations are any indication; this approach is likely to result in heavy-handed over-involvement, and there is no guarantee that it would even result in any positive change.

There are other possible solutions beyond these two, but they simply do not seem as viable.  For example, adding further sanctions to punish corruption and try to instigate a change in the Venezuelan government may work, but it would also result in suffering for the Venezuelan population, and contempt for America among the citizens and government of the ruined nation. This course of action would be dangerous, because the Venezuelan government has made it clear that providing for their citizens is not their top priority.  Conversely, rescinding the current economic sanctions to try and give the Venezuelan economy a chance to flourish would likely do nothing but line the pockets of corrupt Venezuelan leaders, make America look weak and submissive, and give off the impression that the United States government is turning a blind eye to the human rights violations that prompted the sanctions to be implemented in the first place.  The problems presented by these ideas illustrate the importance of staying somewhat neutral and avoiding extreme measures when dealing with these issues, because if America’s government becomes too involved in Venezuela, they are likely to do more harm than good.

Out of the given options, the most sensible, effective, and simple method is clear: The United States Government should not take any further action in Venezuela.  There are several factors that make this the best course of action. First of all, America does not have much of anything to lose from the Venezuelan economic crisis becoming worse. This is due to Venezuela having a comparatively low gross domestic product. As of 2016, Venezuela’s GDP is ranked number 33 in the world, and by 2020 that rank is expected to decrease to number 47 (statisticstimes).  This places Venezuela’s economy just below that of Egypt, and in 2020, it places just after Austria. Venezuela is considered by most sources to be a third world country, which reinforces the fact that the country is not very relevant to the world economy, and America would persevere without any serious issues in the event of its collapse. Secondly, there is a possibility that Venezuela will adopt more intelligent, capitalistic policies when faced with certain economic ruin, and eventually develop the ability to sustain itself. They may also learn that building your entire economy around one export (oil) is not viable in the long run, and begin growing other industries, such as textiles and agriculture. Finally, a non-involvement policy is simply the most logical out of the options that the American Government has in this situation. The Government of the United States is not necessarily obligated to provide assistance to any country that they aren’t explicitly allied with, and Venezuela is no exception.  Regardless of Venezuela’s economic situation, it is not the responsibility of the United States to provide for them. Imposing trade sanctions in response to perceived human rights violations is perfectly reasonable as well, and they do not need to be rescinded.  The United States essentially has no stake in Venezuela, and it is simply not in America’s interest to become involved in their crisis. There are, of course, downsides to this solution.  The main drawback is this: Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis will continue to worsen, if the rapidly decreasing GDP and other economic markers are any indication. However, one must keep in mind that this only affects Venezuelans; therefore it is not an American problem.  In addition, as conditions deteriorate, the possible advent of a popular uprising or military coup overthrowing the corrupt and ineffective administration becomes more likely.  This could result in a more effective system of government taking control of Venezuela in time, which would be beneficial to everyone.  These are all valid reasons for the United States to simply do nothing more in Venezuela.  Venezuela’s government has nobody to blame for this but themselves, and they must now decide whether to plant the seeds of socio-economic growth, or lie in the grave of greedy and short-sighted policies.




Bibliograpy
1- "List of Countries by Projected GDP." GDP Ranking 2016 - StatisticsTimes.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
2- "Venezuela: Where Basics Cost a Month's Pay." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
3- "Venezuela to Print 20,000-unit Banknote." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 05 Dec. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
4- News, BBC. "Venezuela Profile - Timeline." BBC News. N.p., 02 Sept. 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.
5- @CatoInstitute. "The Corruption of Democracy in Venezuela." Cato Institute. N.p., 04 Mar. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.