A recent Brookings Institution paper concludes that Venezuela’s economic downfall began years ago. The former Maduro regime’s corruption and mismanagement pushed the country — once the wealthiest in South America — into a downward spiral of shrinking oil exports and rampant inflation.
According to the report, when analyzing several socio-economic outcomes in Venezuela over time, “it becomes clear that the bulk of the deterioration in living standards occurred long before the [U.S.] sanctions were enacted in 2017.”
Even the regime-controlled Central Bank of Venezuela reported 850% inflation in 2017 and confirmed that Venezuela’s GDP has declined in every quarter since the start of 2014.
The three graphs below demonstrate Venezuela’s ongoing economic and social crisis:
