[ErneX]

Venezuelans are being starved by the sheer incompetency/corruption of its leaders. It’s a kleptocracy.

The collapse started way earlier than the sanctions. It’s funny, but it’s even insulting that some people cannot comprehend that there is evil beyond their own frontiers. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!

[maxglute]

> Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!

A petrostate kleptocracy can still trickle down enough scraps for it's people. An empire that controls global markets that sanctions an petrostate kleptocracy into just a kleptocracy, can't. The reality is no amount of competent governance is going to enable a petrostate like VZ to not be a shitshow if it's sanctioned from maintaining extractive infra (techstack controlled by empire) or sell in global markets. It's not about just being useless, but the inability to be useful no matter what you do. Yes, VZ got fucked from oil $100->$40 pre sanctions, but that's still a survivable/pivotable scenario than oil production going from 3 mbd to 400k mbd due to sanctions that prevents reconstitution of production. There's a reason economic freefall stabilized when Cheveron got license in 2022 that brought production back up to 1mbd.

Now you can argue a "competent" government would have conceded to Monroe (like Machado) in the first place, or not pissed off US in backyard. Like, I get it, you're living through the shit, but don't be economically/geopolitically naive, US didn't sanction VZ because muh democracy decline under Muduro when US props up other petro authoritarian MENA states. The only difference is US meddle with those that align with US interests and not, and US meddling is what makes or breaks petro states.

[ErneX]

I think it’s you who is naive. Plus Maduro is even offering our riches to Trump if they leave him alone:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/world/americas/maduro-ven...

Seems he lost the anti imperialist mojo.

[maxglute]

>In Washington, American officials offer differing assessments of the talks. One U.S. official said the reports of negotiations over the lifting of sanctions and access to the Venezuelan market was “not an accurate assessment of what took place.” ... >As Mr. Grenell and Mr. Maduro’s envoys negotiated a deal, the leader of Venezuela’s main opposition movement, María Corina Machado, pitched her own economic proposal in Washington.

Did you not even read the article, like it's 2025, posting NYT article regarding US adversary like VZ and analyzing it naively is useful idiot behavior. That said, Trump is not a LIO woketard and someone Maduro thinks can be negotiated with, the fact is Maduro is fine with operating under US umbrella, provided US didn't do retarded shit like try a muh democracy regime change like under past US admins. Of course US establishment would still prefer a tool like Machado, but there's a chance under Trump that they'll accept Maduro. That's why the article talks about both Machado an and Maduro parallel barginning. This just 101 signalling, dangling Machado for more Maduro concessions - Machado isn't actually an option, because you know, she'll get disappeared if Maduro thinks US can actuall regime change with her. Hence Machado and this sus (granted marginally deserved) Nobel peace prize is good pressure to get Maduro to concede more. The fact that Maduro is making offer is because he knows there's framework for him staying in power, unlike past US admin zero-sum/maximum pressure play with Guaido. He know's a non-democratic VZ like non-democratic MENA petrostate that aligns with US interests is workable under Trump who is moving away from democracy promotion to realist foreign policy especially with recent strategic shift in focusing on South America.