Contents

• Recent Developments
• Introduction
• Political Situation
• Legacy of Hugo Chávez: (1999-2013)
• Maduro Government
• Repression of Dissent, Establishment of a Constituent Assembly in 2017
• Efforts to Consolidate Power Before the May 2018 Elections
• May 2018 Elections
• Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath
• Human Rights
• Economic Crisis
• Developments in 2018
• Prospects for 2019
• Energy Sector Challenges
• Humanitarian Situation
• Regional Migration Crisis
• Foreign Relations
• Latin America and the Lima Group
• China and Russia
• U.S. Policy
• U.S. Democracy Assistance
• U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance
• Targeted Sanctions Related to Antidemocratic Actions, Human Rights Violations, and Corruption
• Sanctions Restricting Venezuela's Access to U.S. Financial Markets
• Maduro Government: 2013-2018
• Maduro's Second Term Deemed Illegitimate; Interim Government Formed
• Human Rights
• Economic Crisis
• Humanitarian Situation
• International Response Inside Venezuela
• International Humanitarian Response in the Region
• Foreign Involvement in Venezuela's Political Crisis
• Lima Group
• International Contact Group (ICG)
• Cuba, Russia, and China
• Dialogue Facilitated by Norway
• U.S. Policy
• U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela
• Targeted Sanctions on Venezuelan Officials
• Sanctions Restricting Venezuela's Access to U.S. Financial Markets
• Sanctions on Venezuela's Oil and Gold Sectors
• Debate over the Efficacy of U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela
• Energy Sector Concerns and U.S. Economic Sanctions
• U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance
• U.S. Democracy Assistance
• Organized Crime-Related Issues
• Counternarcotics
• Money Laundering
• Illegal Mining
• Colombian Illegally Armed Groups Operating in Venezuela
• Terrorism
• Energy Sector Concerns and Potential U.S. Sanctions
• U.S. Support for Organization of American States Efforts on Venezuela
• Outlook

Summary

Venezuela remains in a deep political and economic crisis under the authoritarian rule of President Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Maduro, narrowly elected in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chávez (president, 1999-2013), began a second term on January 10, 2019, that most Venezuelans and much of the international community consider illegitimate. Since January, Juan Guaidó, president of Venezuela's democratically elected, opposition-controlled National Assembly, has sought to form an interim government to serve until internationally observed elections can be held. Although the United States and 53 other countries recognize Guaidó as interim president, the military high command, supported by Russia and Cuba, has remained loyal to Maduro. Venezuela is in a political stalemate as conditions in the country deteriorate.

Venezuela's economy has collapsed. It is plagued by hyperinflation, severe shortages of food and medicine, and electricity blackouts that have worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis. In April 2019, United Nations officials estimated that some 90% of Venezuelans are living in poverty and 7 million need humanitarian assistance. Maduro has blamed U.S. sanctions for these problems, but most observers cite economic mismanagement and corruption under Chávez and Maduro for the current crisis. U.N. agencies estimate that 3.7 million Venezuelans had fled the country as of March 2019, primarily to other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

U.S. Policy

The United States historically had close relations with Venezuela, a major U.S. oil supplier, but relations deteriorated under the Chávez and Maduro governments. 1999-2013), is unpopular. Nevertheless, he has used the courts, security forces, and electoral council to repress the opposition.

On January 10, 2019, Maduro began a second term after winning reelection on May 20, 2018, in an unfair contest deemed illegitimate by the opposition-controlled National Assembly and most of the international community. The United States, the European Union, the Group of Seven, and most Western Hemisphere countries do not recognize the legitimacy of his mandate. They view the National Assembly as Venezuela's only democratic institution.

Maduro's inauguration capped his efforts to consolidate power. In 2017, protesters called for Maduro to release political prisoners and respect the opposition-led National Assembly. Security forces quashed protests, with more than 130 killed and thousands injured. Maduro then orchestrated the controversial July 2017 election of a National Constituent Assembly; this assembly has usurped most legislative functions. During 2018, Maduro's government arrested dissident military officers and others suspected of plotting against him. Efforts to silence dissent may increase, as the National Assembly (under its new president, Juan Guaidó), the United States, and the international community push for a transition to a new government.

Venezuela also is experiencing a serious economic crisis, and rapid contraction of the economy, hyperinflation, and severe shortages of food and medicine have created a humanitarian crisis. President Maduro has blamed U.S. sanctions for these problems, while conditioning receipt of food assistance on support for his government and increasing military control over the economy. He maintains that Venezuela will seek to restructure its debts, although that appears unlikely. The government and state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S. A. (PdVSA) defaulted on bond payments in 2017. Lawsuits over nonpayment and seizures of PdVSA assets are likely.

U.S. Policy

The United States historically had close relations with Venezuela, a major U.S. oil supplier, but relations have deteriorated under the Chávez and Maduro governments. U.S. policymakers have expressed concerns about the deterioration of human rights and democracy in Venezuela and the country's lack of cooperation on counternarcotics and counterterrorism efforts. U.S. democracy and human rights funding, totaling $15 million in FY2018 (P.L. 115-141), has aimed to support civil society.

The Trump Administration has employed targeted sanctions against Venezuelan officials responsible for human rights violations, undermining democracy, and corruption, as well as on individuals and entities engaged in drug trafficking. Since 2017, the Administration has imposed a series of broader sanctions restricting Venezuelan government access to U.S. financial markets and prohibiting transactions involving the Venezuelan government's issuance of digital currency and Venezuelan debt. The Administration provided almost $97 million in humanitarian assistance to neighboring countries sheltering more than 3 million Venezuelans.

Congressional Action

The 115^th Congress took several actions in response to the situation in Venezuela. In February 2017, the Senate agreed to S.Res. 35 (Cardin), which supported targeted sanctions. In December 2017, the House passed H.R. 2658 (Engel), which would have authorized humanitarian assistance for Venezuela, and H.Res. 259 (DeSantis), which urged the Venezuelan government to accept humanitarian aid. For FY2019, the Administration requested $9 million in democracy and human rights funds for Venezuela. The 115^th Congress did not complete action on the FY2019 foreign assistance appropriations measure. The House version of the FY2019 foreign aid appropriations bill, H.R. 6385, would have provided $15 million for programs in Venezuela; the Senate version, S. 3108, would have provided $20 million.

The 116^th Congress likely will fund foreign assistance to Venezuela and neighboring countries sheltering Venezuelans. Congress may consider additional steps to influence the Venezuelan government's behavior in promoting a return to democracy and to relieve the humanitarian crisis.

Also see CRS In Focus IF10230, Venezuela: Political and Economic Crisis and U.S. Policy; CRS In Focus IF10715, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions; and CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Migration Crisis.

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Recent Developments

On January 21, 2019, Venezuela's government-aligned Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring the National Assembly illegitimate and its rulings unconstitutional. (See "Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath," below.)

On January 21, 2019, Venezuelan military authorities announced the arrest of 27 members of the National Guard who allegedly stole weapons (since recovered) as they tried to incite an uprising against the government. (See "Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath," below.)

On January 15, 2019, Venezuela's National Assembly declared that President Maduro had usurped the presidency. The legislature also established a framework for the formation of a transitional government led by Juan Guaidó of the Popular Will (VP) party, the president of the National Assembly who was elected on January 5, 2019, to serve until presidential elections can be held (per Article 233 of the constitution). In addition, the legislature approved amnesty from prosecution for public officials who facilitate the transition. (See "Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath," below.)

On January 13, 2019, Venezuela's intelligence service detained, and then released, Juan Guaidó. Two days prior, Guaidó had said he would be willing to assume the presidency on an interim basis until new elections could be held; he also called for national protests to occur on January 23, 2019. (See "Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath," below.)

On January 10, 2019, the U.S. Department of State issued a statement condemning Maduro's "illegitimate usurpation of power" and vowing to "work with the National Assembly ... in accordance with your constitution on a peaceful return to democracy." (See "U.S. Policy," below.)

On January 10, 2019, the Organization of American States (OAS) passed a resolution rejecting the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro's new term. (See Appendix B, below.)

On January 10, 2019, President Nicolas Maduro began a second term after a May 2018 election that has been deemed illegitimate by the democratically elected, opposition-controlled National Assembly and much of the international community. (See "Foreign Relations," below.)

On January 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on seven individuals and 23 companies involved in a scheme that stole $2.4 billion through manipulation of Venezuela's currency exchange system under authority provided in Executive Order (E.O.) 13850. (See "Targeted Sanctions Related to Antidemocratic Actions, Human Rights Violations, and Corruption," below.)

On December 17, 2018, a group of investors demanded the Venezuelan government pay off the interest and principal of a defaulted $1.5 billion bond, the first step in a potential legal process by creditors to recover their assets. (See "Prospects for 2019," below.)

On December 14, 2018, El Nacional, Venezuela's last independent newspaper with national circulation, stopped publishing its print edition after 75 years. The move ame after numerous advertising restrictions, lawsuits, and threats from the Venezuelan government. (See "Human Rights," below.)

On December 14, 2018, the United Nations launched an appeal for $738 million to support refugees and migrants from Venezuela in 2019. (See "Humanitarian Situation," below.)

Introduction

Venezuela, long one of the most prosperous countries in South America with the world's largest proven oil reserves, continues to be in the throes of a deep political, economic, and humanitarian crisis. Whereas populist President Hugo Chávez (1998-2013) governed during a period of generally high oil prices, his successor, Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), has exacerbated an economic downturn caused by low global oil prices through mismanagement and corruption. According to Freedom House, Venezuela has fallen from "partly free" under Chávez to "not free" under Maduro, an unpopular leader who has violently quashed dissent and illegally replaced the legislature with a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) elected under controversial circumstances in July 2017.¹ President Maduro won reelection in early elections held in May 2018 that were dismissed as illegitimate by the United States, the European Union (EU), the G-7, and a majority of countries in the Western Hemisphere.

Venezuela, long one of the most prosperous countries in South America with the world's largest proven oil reserves, continues to be in the throes of a deep political, economic, and humanitarian crisis. Whereas populist President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) governed during a period of generally high oil prices, his successor, Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), exacerbated an economic downturn caused by low global oil prices through mismanagement and corruption. According to Freedom House, Venezuela fell from "partly free" under Chávez to "not free" under Maduro.¹ On January 10, 2019, Maduro took office for a second term after winning an election in May 2018 that was deemed illegitimate within Venezuela and by the United States and more than 50 other countries.² Maduro has resisted domestic and international pressure to leave office and allow an interim government led by Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, to serve until free and fair elections can be convened.³

U.S. relations with Venezuela, a major oil supplier, deteriorated during Chávez's rule, which undermined human rights, the separation of powers, and freedom of expression. U.S. and regional concerns have deepened as the Maduro government has manipulated democratic institutions; cracked down on the opposition, media, and civil society; engaged in drug trafficking and corruption; and refused most humanitarian aid. Efforts to hasten a return to democracy in Venezuela have failed thus far. President Maduro's convening of the ANC and early presidential elections have triggered international criticism and led to sanctions by Canada, the EU, Panama, Switzerland, the United States, and potentially others.

, but efforts to find a political solution to the crisis continue.⁴

This report provides an overview of the overlapping political, economic, and humanitarian crises in Venezuela, followed by an overview of U.S. policy toward Venezuela.

Figure 1. Political Map of Venezuela

Source: Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Political Situation

Legacy of Hugo Chávez: (1999-2013)²

5

In December 1998, Hugo Chávez, a leftist populist representing a coalition of small parties, received 56% of the presidential vote (16% more than his closest rival). Chávez's commanding victory illustrated Venezuelans' rejection of the country's two traditional parties, Democratic Action (AD) and the Social Christian party (COPEI), which had dominated Venezuelan politics for the previous 40 years. Most observers attribute Chávez's rise to power to popular disillusionment with politicians whom they thenwho were judged to have squandered the country's oil wealth through poor management and corruption. Chavez's campaign promised constitutional reform; he asserted that the system in place allowed a small elite class to dominate Congress and waste revenues from the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S. A. (PdVSA).

Venezuela had one of the most stable political systems in Latin America from 1958 until 1989. After that period, however, numerous economic and political challenges plagued the country. In 1989, then-President Carlos Andres Pérez (AD) initiated an austerity program that fueled riots in which several hundred people were killed. In 1992, two attempted military coups threatened the Pérez presidency, one led by Chávez, who at the time was a lieutenant colonel railing against corruption and poverty. Chávez served two years in prison for that failed coup attempt. In May 1993, the legislature dismissed Pérez from office for misusing public funds. The election of former President Rafael Caldera (1969-1974) as president in December 1993 brought a measure of political stability, but the government faced a severe banking crisis. A rapid decline in the world price of oil caused a recession beginning in 1998, which contributed to Chávez's landslide election.

Under Chávez, Venezuela adopted a new constitution (ratified by a plebiscite in 1999), a new unicameral legislature, and even a new name for the country—the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, named after the 19^th century South American liberator Simón Bolívar. Buoyed by windfall profits from increases in the price of oil, the Chávez government expanded the state's role in the economy by asserting majority state control over foreign investments in the oil sector and nationalizing numerous private enterprises. Chávez's charisma, use of oil revenue to fund domestic social programs and provide subsidized oil to Cuba and other Central American and Caribbean countries, and willingness to oppose the United States captured global attention.³6

After Chávez's death, his legacy has been debated. President Chávez established an array of social programs and services known as missions that helped reduce poverty by some 20% and improve literacy and access to health care.⁴7 Some maintain that Chávez also empowered the poor by involving them in community councils and workers' cooperatives.⁵8 Nevertheless, his presidency was "characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees," especially after his brief ouster from power in 2002.⁶9 Declining oil production, combined with massive debt and high inflation, have shown the costs involved in Chávez's failure to save or invest past oil profits, tendency to take on debt and print money, and decision to fire thousands of PdVSA technocrats after an oil workers' strike in 2002-2003.⁷10

Venezuela's 1999 constitution, amended in 2009, centralized power in the presidency and established five branches of government rather than the traditional three branches.⁸11 Those branches include the presidency, a unicameral National Assembly, a Supreme Court, a National Electoral Council (CNE), and a "Citizen Power" branch (three entities that ensure that governmentpublic officials at all levels adhere to the rule of law and that can investigate administrative corruption). The president is elected for six-year terms and can be reelected indefinitely; however, he or she also may be made subject to a recall referendum (a process that Chávez submitted to in 2004 and survived but Maduro cancelled in 2016). Throughout his presidency, Chávez exerted influence over all the government branches, particularly after an outgoing legislature dominated by chavistas appointed pro-Chávez justices to dominatecontrol the Supreme Court in 2004 (a move that Maduro's allies would repeat in 2015).

In addition to voters having the power to remove a president through a recall referendum process, the National Assembly has the constitutional authority to act as a check on presidential power, even when the courts fail to do so. The National Assembly consists of a unicameral Chamber of Deputies with 167 seats whose members serve for five years and may be reelected once. With a simple majority, the legislature can approve or reject the budget and the issuing of debt, remove ministers and the vice president from office, overturn enabling laws that give the president decree powers, and appoint the 5five members of the CNE (for 7seven-year terms) and the 32 members of the Supreme Court (for one 12-year term). With a two-thirds majority, the assembly can remove judges, submit laws directly to a popular referendum, and convene a constitutional assembly to revise the constitution.⁹12

Maduro Government¹⁰

: 2013-2018¹³

After the death of President Hugo ChávezChávez's death in March 2013, Venezuela held presidential elections the following month in which actingin April. Acting President Nicolás Maduro defeated Henrique Capriles of the MUDDemocratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) of opposition parties by 1.5%. The opposition alleged significant irregularities and protested the outcome.

GivenAfter his razor-thin victory and the rise of the opposition, Maduro sought to consolidate his authority. Security forces and allied civilian groups violently suppressed protests and restricted freedom of speech and assembly. In 2014, 43 people died and 800 were injured in clashes between pro-government forces and student-led protesters concerned about rising crime and violence. President Maduro imprisoned opposition figures, including Leopoldo López, head of the Popular Will (VP) party, who was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison for allegedly inciting violence. The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) initiated a government-opposition dialogue in April 2014, but talks quickly broke down.¹¹ In February 2015, the Maduro In February 2015, the government again cracked down on the opposition.

In the December 2015 legislative elections, the MUD captured a two-thirds majority in Venezuela's National Assembly—a major setback for Maduro. The Maduro government took actions to thwart the legislature's power. The PSUV-aligned Supreme Court blocked three MUD deputies from taking office, which deprived the opposition of thea two-thirds majority needed to submit bills directly to referendum and remove Supreme Court justices. From January 2016 through August 2017 (when the National Constituent Assembly discussed below voted to give itself legislative powers), the Supreme Court blocked numerous laws and assumed many of the legislature's functions.¹²

In 2016, opposition efforts focused on attempts to recall President Maduro in a national referendum. The government used delaying tactics to slow the process considerably. On October 20, 2016, Venezuela's. In October 2016, the CNE suspended the recall effort after five state-level courts issued rulings alleging fraud in a signature collection drive that had amassed millions of signatures.

In October 2016, after an appeal by Pope Francis, In late 2016, most of the opposition (with the exception of the Popular Will party) and the Venezuelan government agreed to talksPopular Will) agreed to talks with the government mediated by the Vatican, along with; the former leaders of the Dominican Republic, Spain, and Panama; and the head of UNASURthe Union of South American Nations. By December 2016, the opposition had left the talks due to what it viewed as a lack of progress on the part of the government in meeting its commitments.¹³

Repression of Dissent, Establishment of a Constituent Assembly in 2017

Far from meeting the commitments it made during the Vatican-led talks14 In 2017, the Maduro government continued to harass and arbitrarily detain opponents (see "Human Rights," below). In addition, President Maduro appointed a hardline vice president, Tareck el Aissami, former governor of the state of Aragua and a sanctioned U.S. drug kingpin, in January 2017designated by the United States as a drug kingpin. Popular protests, which were frequent between 2014 and autumn 2016, had dissipated. In addition to restricting freedom of assembly, the government had cracked down on media outlets and journalists, including foreign media.¹⁴.¹⁵

Despite these obstacles, the MUD became reenergized in response to the Supreme Court's March 2017 rulings to dissolve the legislature and assume all legislative functions. After domestic protests, a rebuke by then-Attorney General Luisa Ortega (a Chávez appointee), and an outcry from the international community, President Maduro urged the court to revise those rulings, and it complied. In April 2017, the government banned opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles from seeking office for 15 years, which fueled more protests.

From March to July 2017, the opposition conducted large, sustained protests against the government, calling for President Maduro to release political prisoners, respect the separation of powers, and hold an early presidential election. Clashes between security forces (backed by armed civilian militias) and protesters left more than 130 dead and hundreds injured (See "Human Rights" below). Constituent Assembly Established. .

In May 2017, President Maduro announced that he would convene a constituent assembly to revise the constitution and scheduled July 30 elections to select delegates to that assembly. The Supreme Court ruled that Maduro could convoke the assembly without first holding a popular referendum (as the constitution requiredrequires). The opposition boycotted, arguing that the elections were unconstitutional; a position shared by then-Attorney General Luisa Ortega and international observers (including the United States, Canada, the EU, and many Latin American countries). In an unofficial plebiscite convened on July 16in mid-July by the MUD, 98% of some 7.6 million Venezuelans cast votes rejecting the creation of a constituent assembly; the government ignored that vote.

Despite an opposition boycott and protests, the government orchestrated the July 30, 2017, election of a 545-member National Constituent Assembly (ANC) to draft a new constitution. Venezuela's CNE reported that almost 8.1 million people voted, but a company involved in setting up the voting system alleged that the tally was inflated by at least 1 million votes.¹⁵16

Many observers viewed the establishment of the ANC as an attempt by the ruling PSUV to ensure its continued control of the government even though many countries have refused to recognize its legitimacy. The ANC dismissed Attorney General Ortega, who had been critical of the government, voted to approve its own mandate for two years, and declared itself superior to other branches of government. Ortega fled Venezuela in August 2017 and, since then, has spoken out against the abuses of the Maduro government.¹⁶17 The ANC also approved a decree allowing it to pass legislation, unconstitutionally assuming the powers of the National Assembly.

Efforts to Consolidate Power Before the May 2018 Elections

, not the National Assembly, to pass legislation.

From mid-2017 to May 2018, President Maduro strengthened his control over the PSUV and gained the upper hand over the MUD despite international condemnation of his actions.¹⁷ In October 2017, the PSUV won 18 of 23 gubernatorial elections. Although fraud likely took place given the significant discrepancies between opinion polls and the election results, the opposition could not prove that fraudit was widespread.¹⁸ There is evidence that the PSUV linked receipt of future government food assistance to votes for its candidates by placing food assistance card registration centers next to polling stations, a practice also used in subsequent elections.¹⁹ The MUD coalition initially rejected the election results, but four victorious MUD governors took their oaths of office in front of the ANC (rather than the National Assembly), a decision that fractured the coalition.

With the opposition in disarray, President Maduro and the ANC moved to consolidate power and blamed U.S. sanctions for the country's economic problems. Maduro fired and arrested the head of PdVSA and the oil minister for corruption. He appointed a general with no experience in the energy sector as oil minister and head of the company, further consolidating military control over the economy. The ANC approved a law to further restrict freedom of expression and assembly.

Although most opposition parties did not participate in municipal elections held in December 2017, a few, including A New Time (UNT), led by Manuel Rosales, and Progressive Advance (AP), led by Henri Falcón, fielded candidates. The PSUV won more than 300 of 335 mayoralties. The CNE required parties that did not participate in those elections to re-register in order to run in the 2018 presidential contest, a requirement that many of them subsequently rejected.

May 2018 Elections

and Aftermath. The Venezuelan constitution established that the country's presidential elections were to be held by December 2018. Although many prominent opposition politicians had been imprisoned (Leopoldo López, under house arrest), barred from seeking office (Henrique Capriles), or in exile (Antonio Ledezma²⁰) by late 2017, some MUD leaders sought to unseat Maduro through elections. Those leaders negotiated with the PSUV to try to obtain guarantees, such as a reconstituted CNE and international observers, to help ensure the elections would be as free and fair as possible. In January 2018, the ANC ignored those negotiations and called for elections to be moved up from December to May 2018, violating a constitutional requirement that elections be called with at least six months anticipation.²¹ The MUD declared an election boycott, but Henri Falcón (AP) broke with the coalition to run. Falcón, former governor of Lara, pledged to accept humanitarian assistance, dollarize the economy, and foster national reconciliation, former governor of Lara, broke with the coalition to run.

Venezuela's presidential election proved to be minimally competitive and took place within a climate of state repression. President Maduro and the PSUV's control over the CNE, courts, and constituent assembly weakened Falcón's ability to campaign. State media promoted government propaganda. There were no internationally accredited election monitors. The government coerced its workers to vote and placed food assistance card distribution centers next to polling stations.

The CNE reported that Maduro received 67.7% of the votes, followed by Falcón (21%) and Javier Bertucci, a little-known evangelical minister (10.8%).²² Voter turnout was much lower in 2018 (46%) than in 2013 (80%), perhaps due to the MUD's boycott. After independent monitors reported widespread fraud, Falcón and Bertucci called for new elections to be held.²³

Lead-Up to Maduro's January 2019 Inauguration and Aftermath

22

Since the May 2018 election, President Maduro has faced mounting economic problems (discussed below), coup attempts, and increasing international isolation (see "Foreign Relations," below). His government has released some political prisoners, including U.S. citizen Joshua Holt, former Mayor Daniel Ceballos, opposition legislators (Gilber Caro and Renzo Prieto), and, in October 2018, former student leader Lorent Saleh.²⁴ He reshuffled his Cabinet to establish Delcy Rodriguez, former head of the ANC and former foreign minister, as executive vice president in June 2018 and made additional changes in October 2018 within the judiciary and the intelligence services to strengthenincrease his control. With the opposition relatively weak and divided, his control.²⁵ On December 9, 2018, Maduro's PSUV-dominated municipal council elections that most opposition parties boycotted, some 27% of eligible voters participated.²⁶

During 2018, the opposition remained relatively weak and divided and Maduro focused on quashing coup plots and dissent within the military.²⁷ His government arrested those perceived as threats, including military officers, an opposition legislator accused of involvement in an August 2018 alleged assassination attempt against Maduro, and a German journalist accused of being a spy.²⁸ According to Foro Penal (a Venezuelan human rights group), the government held 278 political prisoners as of December 2018. Foro Penal 23 Foro Penal and Human Rights Watch have documented several cases in which those accused of plotting coups were subjected to "beatings, asphyxiation and electric shocks" by the intelligence services ²⁹.²⁴ The October 2018 death in custody of Fernando Albán, an opposition politician who was also in custody for his reported involvement in the August 2018 alleged assassination attempt, has, provoked domestic protests and international concern.³⁰

Given that 70% of the population favored Maduro's resignation instead of his inauguration to a second term, observers predict he will face mounting protests and internal dissent.³¹ Maduro's regime also could see more defections. In early January, Christian Zerpa, a former ally of Maduro on the Supreme Court, fled the country to seek asylum in the United States; he maintains that the May election "was not free and competitive."³²

Under the leadership of Juan Guaidó, a 35-year 25 Maduro's Second Term Deemed Illegitimate; Interim Government Formed

On January 10, 2019, Maduro began a second term after winning reelection on May 20, 2018, in a contest deemed illegitimate by the opposition-controlled National Assembly and most of the international community. The United States, the European Union (EU), the Group of Seven (G-7), and most Western Hemisphere countries do not recognize the legitimacy of his mandate. They view the National Assembly as Venezuela's only democratic institution.

Under the leadership of Juan Guaidó, a 35-year-old industrial engineer from the VP party who was elected president of the National Assembly on January 5, 2019, the opposition has been reenergized.³³ Guaidó, buoyed by widespread international condemnation of the May 2018 elections, has declared himself willing to serve as interim president of Venezuela until elections can be called as provided for in Article 233 of the 1999 constitution in the event that a president vacates power.³⁴ Secret police detained and then subsequently released Guaidó on January 13, 2019; it is unclear whether they were acting under Maduro's authority. A government spokesman maintained that the detention "was an irregular and unilateral action" by officials who would be punished.³⁵ While the Brazilian government and the Secretary General of the OAS have openly welcomed Guaidó as "interim president," the United States and others have expressed solidarity and urged Venezuelans to rally behind him but stopped short of recognizing him as the country's interim leader.³⁶

The National Assembly has enacted resolutions to declare that President Maduro is no longer the legitimate president, establish a framework for the formation of a transition government, ask 48 countries to freeze Maduro government assets, and provide for amnesty for any public officials (including military members) that support a transition.³⁷ The Maduro-aligned Supreme Court has ruled that the new leadership of the National Assembly has been acting outside of the law and invalidated its declarations.³⁸ It remains to be seen how the security forces will respond to these developments, as well as to protests that have been called for January 23, 2019, and beyond.

Human Rights

Human rights organizations and U.S. officials have expressed concerns for more than a decade about the deterioration of democratic institutions and threats to freedom of speech and press in Venezuela.³⁹ Human rights conditions in Venezuela have deteriorated even more under President Maduro than under former President Chávez. Abuses have increased, as security forces and allied armed civilian militias (collectivos) have been deployed to violently quash protests. In August 2017, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOCHR) issued a report on human rights violations perpetrated by the Venezuelan security forces against the protestors. According to the report, credible and consistent accounts indicated that "security forces systematically used excessive force to deter demonstrations, crush dissent, and instill fear."⁴⁰ The U.N. report maintained that many of those detained were subject to cruel, degrading treatment and that in several cases, the ill treatment amounted to torture. UNOCHR called for an international investigation of those abuses.

In June 2018, UNOCHR issued another report documenting abuses committed by units involved in crime fighting, the scale of the health and food crisis, and the continued impunity in cases involving security officers who allegedly killed people during the protests.

Other selected human rights reports from 2017-2018 include

• The Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal and Human Rights Watch maintain that more than 5,300 Venezuelans were detained during the protests. Together, the organizations documented inhumane treatment of more than 300 detainees that occurred between April and September 2017.⁴¹
• In February 2018, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) released its third report on the situation of human rights in Venezuela.⁴² The report highlighted the violation of the separation of powers that occurred as President Maduro and the judiciary interfered in the work of the legislature and then replaced it with a constituent assembly. It then criticized state limits on social protests and freedom of expression and said that the government "must curtail the use of force against demonstrators."
• In March 2018, the State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2017 found that "human rights deteriorated dramatically" in 2017 as the government tried hundreds of civilians in military courts and arrested 12 opposition mayors for their "alleged failure to control protests."⁴³
• In May 2018, an independent panel of human rights experts added a legal assessment to a report containing information and witness testimonies gathered by the OAS recommending that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should investigate credible reports that the Venezuelan government committed crimes against humanity.⁴⁴

These reports published by international human rights organizations, the U.S. government, U.N. entities, and the OAS/IACHR reiterate the findings of PROVEA, one of Venezuela's leading human rights organizations. In its report covering 2017 (published in June 2018), PROVEA asserts that 2017 was the worst year for human rights in Venezuela since the report was first published in 1989. In addition to violating political and civil rights, PROVEA denounces the Maduro government's failure to address the country's humanitarian crisis, citing its "official indolence" as causing increasing deaths and massive emigration.⁴⁵ For other sources on human rights in Venezuela, see Appendix C.

In mid-January, Guaidó announced he was willing to serve as interim president until new presidential elections are held. Buoyed by the massive turnout for protests he called for, Guaidó took the oath of office on January 23, 2019. Since then, the National Assembly has enacted resolutions declaring Maduro's mandate illegitimate, establishing a framework for a transition government, drafting a proposal to offer amnesty for officials who support the transition, and creating a strategy for receiving humanitarian assistance.

Guaidó and his supporters have organized two high-profile efforts to encourage security (military and police) forces to abandon Maduro, neither of which has succeeded.²⁶ On February 23, they sought to bring emergency supplies into the country that had been positioned on the Colombia- and Brazil-Venezuela borders by the United States and other donors. Venezuelan national guard troops and armed civilian militias (colectivos) loyal to Maduro killed seven individuals and injured hundreds as they prevented the aid convoys from crossing the border.²⁷ The rest of the military did not attack civilians. While that aid remains blocked, U.N. agencies are ramping up their efforts in Venezuela, and both Guaidó and Maduro agreed in late March to allow the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to begin providing assistance in Venezuela (see "International Response Inside Venezuela" below).²⁸

By April 2019, more than 1,000 Venezuelan security forces (mostly from the national guard and police) had defected into Colombia. The Colombian military has disarmed and placed them in hotels near the border along with their family members.²⁹ In May 2019, Colombia's migration agency signed an agreement with the interim government of Venezuela to grant security forces that have defected from Maduro temporary legal status to work and receive assistance from the Colombian government.³⁰ Prospects for those who have defected is reportedly difficult, as they have become among the more than 1.2 million Venezuelans in Colombia.³¹

On April 30, 2019, Guaidó and Leopoldo López, head of the VP party who had been released from house arrest by pro-Guaidó military officials, called for a civil-military rebellion against Maduro. National guard and militias loyal to Maduro violently put down pro-Guaidó supporters and attacked journalists. Social media accounts and independent media were blocked.³² U.S. officials asserted that top Maduro officials, including the head of the Supreme Court and the defense minister, had pledged to support the uprising but changed their minds.³³ As the day ended, López and other opposition lawmakers sought refuge in various foreign embassies.

Guaidó and his allies continue to hope that sustained protests and international pressure will lead to military defections that will compel Maduro to leave office and allow elections to be held. Nevertheless, they have also sent envoys to Norway for talks on a political solution to the crisis.³⁴ Maduro's harassment of the National Assembly and the Maduro-aligned Supreme Court's efforts to arrest and prosecute lawmakers involved in the uprising could derail those efforts.

Many observers regard the military's participation as essential for the opposition's transition plan to work. Aside from the former head of the national intelligence agency (General Manuel Christopher Figuera), who supported the uprising on April 30, the military high command remains loyal to Maduro. Top military leaders have enriched themselves through corruption, drug trafficking, and other illicit industries (see "Organized Crime-Related Issues" below).³⁵ This illicit income, they argue, has blunted the impact of U.S. sanctions on Maduro's closest allies.³⁶ Some military leaders may fear that they could face prosecution for human rights abuses under a new government, even though the opposition has proposed amnesty for those who join their side. The U.S. government has also said that it may remove sanctions on officials who abandon Maduro and side with Guaidó (as they did with General Figuera), but that process could be more difficult, depending upon the individual and type of sanctions involved.³⁷ Human Rights

Human rights organizations and U.S. officials have expressed concerns for more than a decade about the deterioration of democratic institutions and threats to freedom of speech and press in Venezuela.³⁸ Human rights conditions in Venezuela have deteriorated even more under President Maduro than under former President Chávez. Abuses have increased, as security forces and allied armed civilian militias (colectivos) have been deployed to violently quash protests. In August 2017, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOCHR) issued a report on human rights violations perpetrated by the Venezuelan security forces against protestors earlier that year. According to the report, credible and consistent accounts indicated that "security forces systematically used excessive force to deter demonstrations, crush dissent, and instill fear."³⁹ The U.N. report maintained that many of those detained were subject to cruel, degrading treatment and that in several cases, the ill treatment amounted to torture.

In June 2018, UNOCHR issued another report documenting abuses committed by units involved in crime fighting, the scale of the health and food crisis, and the continued impunity in cases involving security officers who allegedly killed people during the protests.⁴⁰ Selected human rights reports from 2018 to 2019 include the following:

• In June 2018, PROVEA, one of Venezuela's leading human rights organizations, asserted that 2017 was the worst year for human rights in Venezuela since the report was first published in 1989. In addition to violating political and civil rights, PROVEA denounces the Maduro government's failure to address the country's humanitarian crisis, citing its "official indolence" as causing increasing deaths and massive emigration.⁴¹
• In May 2018, an independent panel of human rights experts added a legal assessment to a report containing information and witness testimonies gathered by the Organization of American States (OAS) recommending that the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate credible reports that the Venezuelan government committed crimes against humanity.⁴²
• In February 2019, the Venezuelan Human Rights group Foro Penal documented seven deaths, 107 arbitrary detentions, and 58 bullet injuries that resulted from the use of force by state security forces and colectivos that blocked aid from entering the country on February 22-23, 2019.⁴³
• In March 2019, the U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2018 cited "extrajudicial killings by security forces, including colectivos; torture by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; and political prisoners" as the most serious human rights abuses in Venezuela. According to the report, the government did not investigate officials alleged to have committed abuses amidst widespread impunity.⁴⁴

Analysts predict increasing repression, as Maduro has called for the arrest of Leopoldo López and opposition lawmakers involved in the April 30 uprising. The Supreme Court has stripped several lawmakers' immunity from prosecution, increasing the likelihood that they may be arrested and possibly tortured if they do not seek protection in a foreign embassy or go into exile. Maduro's intelligence police is currently holding and reportedly torturing Juan Requesens (a legislator detained in August 2018), Roberto Marrero (Guaidó's chief of staff detained in March 2019), and Edgar Zambrano (the vice president of the National Assembly detained May 9).⁴⁵ Some fear that Guaidó himself could face arrest or exile.

For other sources on human rights in Venezuela, see Appendix B. Investigations into Human Rights Abuses. In September 2017, several countries urged the U.N. Human Rights Council to support the High Commissioner's call for an international investigation into the abuses described in the U.N.'s August 2017 report on Venezuela.⁴⁶ In June 2018, the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged the U.N. Human Rights Council to launch a commission of inquiry to investigate the abuses it documented in that and a follow-up report. It referred the report to the prosecutor of the ICC. On September 26, 2018, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on Venezuela expressing "its deepest concern" about the serious human rights violations described in the June 2018 report, calling upon the Venezuelan government to accept humanitarian assistance and requiring a UNOCHR investigation on the situation in Venezuela to be presented in 2019.

In March 2019, a technical team from UNOCHR visited Venezuela, possibly paving the way for a visit by High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.

In addition to the UNOCHR, former Venezuelan officials, the OAS, and neighboring countries have asked the ICC to investigate serious human rights violations committed by the Maduro government; the ICC prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation in February 2018.⁴⁷ In November 2017, former Attorney General Luisa Ortega presented a dossier of evidence to the ICC that the police and military may have committed more than 1,800 extrajudicial killings as of June 2017. In the dossier, Ortega urged the ICC to charge Maduro and several officials in his Cabinet with serious human rights abuses. An exiled judge appointed by the National Assembly to serve on the "parallel" supreme court of justice also accused senior Maduro officials of systemic human rights abuses before the ICC. On September 26, 2018, the governments of Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru requested an investigation of Venezuela's actions by the ICC—the first time fellow states party to the Rome Statute asked for an investigation into the situation of another treaty member.

Economic Crisis⁴⁸

For decades, Venezuela was one of South America's most prosperous countries. Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves of oil, and its economy is built on oil. (See also "Energy Sector Concerns and U.S. Economic Sanctions" below.) Oil traditionally has accounted for more than 90% of Venezuelan exports, and oil sales have funded the government budget. Venezuela benefited from the boom in oil prices during the 2000s. President Chávez used the oil windfall to spend heavily on social programs and expand subsidies for food and energy, and government debt more than doubled as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) between 2000 and 2012. ⁴⁹ Chávez also used oil to expand influence abroad through PetroCaribe, a program that allowed Caribbean Basin countries to purchase oil at below-market prices.

Although substantial government outlays on social programs helped Chávez curry political favor and reduce poverty, economic mismanagement had long-term consequences. Chávez moved the economy in a less market-oriented direction, with widespread expropriations and nationalizations, as well as currency and price controls. These policies discouraged foreign investment and created market distortions. Government spending was not directed toward investment to increase economic productivity or diversify the economy from its reliance on oil. Corruption proliferated.

When Nicolás Maduro took office in 2013, he inherited economic policies reliant on proceeds from oil exports. When world oil prices crashed by nearly 50% in 2014, the Maduro government was ill-equipped to soften the blow. The fall in oil prices strained public finances. Instead of adjusting fiscal policies through tax increases and spending cuts, the Maduro government tried to address its growing budget deficit by printing money, which led to inflation. The government also tried to curb inflation through price controls, although these controls were largely ineffective in restricting prices, as supplies dried up and transactions moved to the black market.⁵⁰

Meanwhile, the government continued to face a substantial debt burden, with debt owed to private bondholders, China, Russia, multilateral lenders, importers, and service companies in the oil industry. Initially, the government tried to service its debt, fearing legal challenges from bondholders. To service its debt, it cut imports, including of food and medicine, among other measures. In August 2018, the Trump Administration imposed sanctions restricting Venezuela's ability to access U.S. financial markets, which exacerbated the government's fiscal situation. By late 2017, the government had largely stopped paying its bondholders, and Maduro announced plans to restructure its debt with private creditors. It also restructured its debt with Russia in 2017.⁵¹ The Trump Administration has increased economic pressure on the Maduro government through sanctions. (See "U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela.") For example, in August 2017, it restricted Venezuela's ability to access U.S. financial markets, which exacerbated the government's fiscal situation, and in January 2019, it imposed new restrictions on Venezuela's oil sector. Over the past several years, Venezuela's economy has collapsed, and it is difficult to overstate the extent of its challenges. According to some economists, it is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years.⁵² According to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Venezuela's economy in 2019 will contract for the sixth year in a row (Figure 2).⁵³ The IMF projects that Venezuela's gross domestic product in U.S. dollars fell from $331 billion in 2012 to $98 billion in 2018 and will fall again to $76 billion in 2019 (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Venezuela's Economy: Collapsing GDP

Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2019.

Notes: 2019 data are forecasts.

Hyperinflation has devastated the economy. The Maduro government rapidly expanded the money supply to finance budget deficits, which .⁵¹

Developments in 2018

• Economic output in Venezuela has collapsed. Venezuela's economy has contracted each year since 2014. As the economic crisis has continued and oil production has plummeted (see Figure 3), the pace of economic contraction has accelerated. In 2014, the economy contracted by 3.9%; in more recent years, the pace has increased to 16.5% in 2016, 14% in 2017, and 18% in 2018 (see Figure 2).⁵² In U.S. dollars, Venezuela's GDP has fallen from $331 billion in 2012 to $96 billion in 2018.⁵³
• Hyperinflation is rampant, creating shortages of critical supplies. The government has rapidly expanded the money supply to finance budget deficits, which has led to one of the worst cases of hyperinflation in history, comparable to Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in the late 2000s.⁵⁴ In October 2018, the IMF forecast that inflation (as measured by average changes in consumer prices) increased from 254% in 2016 to 1,087% in 2017 to 1,370,000% in 2018 (see Figure 2)The IMF forecasts that inflation in Venezuela will reach 10 million percent in 2019.⁵⁵ Hyperinflation, as well as low foreign exchange reserves, which make it difficult for Venezuela to import goods and services, has created shortages of critical supplies (including food and medicine), leading to a humanitarian disaster and fueling massive migration (see "Humanitarian Situation," below).
• The government remains in default and continues to run unsustainable fiscal policies. " below). Despite pledges to restructure the country's debt, the government has made no discernable progress in negotiations with private creditors and the country remains in default. According to one estimate, the government and state-owned companies owe nearly $8 billion in unpaid interest and principal.⁵⁶ on most of its sizeable debt. The government has continued payments on a few select debts, including loans from Russia, a geopolitically and financially important supporter for the Maduro government, and some bonds held by private creditors that, if defaulted on, could result in legal challenges by investors and seizure of U.S. refiner Citgo (owned by PdVSA). Meanwhile, the government continues to run large budget deficits, forecast at 30% of GDP in 2018 and 2019, amid high debt levels (estimated to be 160reach 214% of GDP in 2019).⁵⁶).⁵⁷ By one measure, debt relative to exports, Venezuela is the world's most heavily indebted country.⁵⁸

57 In general, the government has been slow to address the economic crisis or acknowledge the government's role in creating it. Instead, the government has largely blamed the country's struggles on a foreign "economic war," a thinly veiled reference to U.S. sanctions.⁵⁹58 In February 2018, as a way to raise new funds, the cash-strapped government launched a new digital currency, the "petro," backed by oil and other commodities, which runs on blockchain technology.⁶⁰ The government claims the petro raised $3.3 billion,⁶¹ but the amount raised has never been confirmed by an independent audit.⁶² Additionally,although there are serious questions about the petro's operational viability: there are few signs of the petro being circulated within Venezuela or sold on any major cryptocurrency exchange.⁶³

Figure 2. Venezuela: Economic Collapse and Hyperinflation

Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2018.

.⁵⁹ In August 2018, the government acknowledged, for the first time, its role in creating hyperinflation and announced a new set of policies for addressing the economic crisis. The new policies, reportedly developed in consultation with international advisers, included, such as introducing a new "sovereign bolívar," which removed five zeros from the previous currency (the bolívar); cutting the government budget deficit from 30% in 2018 to zero, in part by raising value-added tax and increasing the price of petrol; speeding up tax collection; and increasing the minimum salary by more than 3,000%.⁶⁴ Since the plan's rollout in August, there is little evidence that the government's policies have restored confidence in Venezuela's economy. In December 2018, Maduro visited Moscow seeking financial assistance. Although he announced investment deals with Russian partners—$5 billion for the oil industry and $1 billion for the gold industry—Russian officials cast doubt on these commitments.⁶⁵

Prospects for 2019

The long-anticipated conflict between investors holding defaulted Venezuelan bonds and the government may be coming to a head. Venezuelan government and PdVSA dollar-denominated bonds were largely issued under New York law. It has been expected that bondholders would seek repayment through legal challenges against the Venezuelan government or PdVSA in the U.S. legal system. If successful in their legal challenges, creditors could receive compensation through seizure of Venezuela's assets in the United States, such as Citgo (whose parent company is PdVSA), oil exports, and cash payments for oil exports. Even though the government started missing payments in late 2017, creditors refrained from mounting legal challenges, presumably hoping for higher recovery rates during a more favorable economic environment and/or negotiations with new government. U.S. sanctions also complicate the restructuring process. However, in mid-December 2018, a group of creditors took an initial step toward launching the legal process, by demanding payment on a defaulted $1.5 billion bond. It is expected that other creditors will organize and follow suit.⁶⁶

60 However, the government has been slow to enact even these modest reforms, and Maduro has offered few new proposals since starting his second term.⁶¹

Venezuela's economic situation has become more difficult following the rollout of new U.S. oil sanctions in January 2019, although it has worked with Russia, Turkey, and other countries to mitigate the sanctions' impact.⁶² The Venezuelan government has turned to selling gold reserves in a desperate attempt to raise funds, with nearly $800 million sold to Turkey in 2018.⁶³ As the United States has since sanctioned Venezuela's central bank and state-run gold mining company, analysts maintain that Maduro will likely increase illicit gold shipments sent through neighboring countries, a key revenue stream for the military.⁶⁴

Venezuela's economic crisis has been ongoing for a number of years, and the outlook is bleak. There is neither a clear nor a quick resolution on the horizon, particularly given the concurrent political crisis. The government's policy responses to the economic crisis—even with the new reforms in August— have been widely criticized as inadequate. The government appears loathe to adopt policies widely viewed by economists as necessary to restoring the economy: removing price controls, creating an independent central bank, engaging with an IMF programentering an IMF program that could unlock broader international assistance, and restructuring its debt with private bondholders.

The role of the IMF in particular is problematic, with the government resisting outside support from "imperialist" powersMaduro government is particularly resistant to assistance from the IMF, which would be a key component of any multi-donor international financial assistance package. Venezuela has not allowed the IMF to conduct routine surveillance of its economy since 2004, and the IMF has found the government in violation of its commitments as an IMF member. However, in December 2018, the IMF acknowledged thatAlthough the Venezuelan government provided it with some economic data as required by all IMF members. It remains to be seen whether this will be in late 2018, it has hardly been a turning point in the Maduro government's willingness to engage with the IMFinternational organization. Some analysts believe amajor change in Venezuela's overall economic strategy will only come come only if and when there is a change in government. Even then, analysts have projected it could take several years to address, including what is expected to be the most complex sovereign debt restructuring in history and an international financial assistance package of $100 billion to help the country's economy to recover.⁶⁵ Humanitarian Situation⁶⁶

Before the political upheaval in Venezuela began in January 2019, Venezuelans were already facing a humanitarian crisis due to a lack of food, medicine, and access to social services. Political persecution, hyperinflation, loss of income, and oppressive poverty also contributed to a dire situation. According to household surveys, the percentage of Venezuelans living in poverty increased from 48.4% in 2014 to 87% in 2017.⁶⁷ U.N. officials estimate that approximately 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with pregnant and nursing women, those with chronic illnesses, indigenous people, migrants, children under five, and people with disabilities particularly in need.⁶⁸ Successive electrical blackouts in March 2019 made conditions worse inside Venezuela, limiting people's access to power and clean water and further contributing to health risks. While power has been restored in many parts of the country, rationing in many states continues to take place.⁶⁹

As of April 2019, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that approximately 3.7 million Venezuelans (roughly 12% of the population) had left the country (see Figure 3). Of those, most (an estimated 3 million Venezuelans) remained in Latin America and the Caribbean, including in Colombia (1.2 million), Peru (728,000), Chile (288,000), Ecuador (221,000), Argentina (130,000), Brazil (96,000), and Panama (94,000).⁷⁰ UNHCR and IOM estimate that by the end of 2019, the number of Venezuelan refugees and migrants could reach over 5.3 million.⁷¹ Although UNHCR does not consider most Venezuelans to be refugees, it asserts that a significant number need humanitarian assistance, international protection, and opportunities to regularize their status.

Figure 3. Venezuelan Migrants and Asylum Seekers: Flows to the Region and Beyond

Source: UNHCR.

The crisis in Venezuela is affecting the entire region. Neighboring countries, particularly Colombia, are straining to absorb arrivals often malnourished and in poor health.⁷² The spread of previously eradicated diseases, such as measles, is also a major concern.⁷³ Responses to the Venezuelan arrivals vary by country and continue to evolve with events on the ground. Humanitarian experts are most concerned about the roughly 60% of Venezuelans in neighboring countries who lack identification documents, which makes them vulnerable to arrest and deportation by governments and to abuse by criminal groups, including human trafficking.⁷⁴

Venezuela's exodus is an unprecedented displacement crisis for the Western Hemisphere, which has in place some of the highest protection standards in the world for displaced and vulnerable persons. Countries in the region are under pressure to examine their respective migration and asylum policies and to address, as a region, the legal status of Venezuelans who have fled their country. It remains to be seen how events unfolding inside Venezuela will continue to the impact the ongoing humanitarian situation and response.

International Response Inside Venezuela

In 2018, Maduro publicly rejected offers of international aid, although some humanitarian assistance was provided.⁷⁵ Since then, U.N. humanitarian entities and partners have made progress in scaling up their humanitarian and protection activities. The number of U.N. staff in the country has doubled since 2017, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has set up regional hubs in the country. The Cooperation and Assistance Coordination Team, led by the U.N. Resident Coordinator, was established in February 2019 to facilitate humanitarian coordination in Venezuela. A needs overview for Venezuela was completed in March and indicated significant humanitarian needs exist across sectors. Based on this data, UNOCHA and other humanitarian partners are developing a Humanitarian Response Plan for Venezuela, which will focus on six sectors and two sub-sectors: health; food security and agriculture; nutrition; water, sanitation, and hygiene; protection (including child protection and gender-based violence); and education.⁷⁶

In addition, on March 29, 2019, IFRC announced plans to scale up humanitarian activities inside Venezuela in coordination with the Venezuelan Red Cross and with the agreement of both the interim government and Maduro.⁷⁷ On April 11, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been present in Venezuela since 1966, announced an expansion of its work on four pressing humanitarian issues: migration, health, water and sanitation, and detention.⁷⁸

International Humanitarian Response in the Region

The U.N. Secretary-General appointed UNHCR and IOM to coordinate the international response to the needs of displaced Venezuelans and host communities in the region, which includes governments, U.N. entities, nongovernmental organizations (national and international), the Red Cross Movement, faith-based organizations, and civil society in the region. The U.S. government is also providing humanitarian assistance and helping to coordinate regional response efforts. (See "U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance," below.) Former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, the U.N. Joint Special Representative for Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants, is charged with promoting dialogue and consensus in the region and beyond on the humanitarian response.

In mid-December 2018, UNHCR and IOM launched the Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, which is the first of its kind in the Americas: an operational and coordination strategy and an appeal for $738 million in funding to support over 2 million Venezuelans in the region and half a million people in host communities.⁷⁹ According to the Financial Tracking Service, as of May 24, 2019, the appeal was 20.7% funded.⁸⁰ Protection and assistance needs are significant for arrivals and host communities. Services provided vary by country but include support for reception centers and options for shelter; emergency relief items, such as emergency food assistance, safe drinking water, and hygiene supplies; legal assistance with asylum applications and other matters; protection from violence and exploitation; and the creation of temporary work programs and education opportunities.

Foreign Involvement in Venezuela's Political Crisis⁸¹

The international community remains divided over how to respond to the political crisis in Venezuela. One group of countries supports the Guaidó government, another supports Maduro, and a third group of countries—including Mexico, Norway, Uruguay, and some Caribbean nations—has remained neutral in the crisis.

These divisions have thus far stymied action by the U.N. and the OAS to help facilitate a political solution to Venezuela's crisis. Within the U.N. Security Council, Russia and (to a lesser extent) China support Maduro. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom (UK) support Guiadó. At the OAS, recent resolutions have amassed enough votes (19 of 34 member states) to declare Maduro's 2018 reelection illegitimate.⁸² The OAS remains divided, however, over what role it should play in hastening a return to democracy in Venezuela. Countries in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), many of which used to receive subsidized oil from Venezuela, have been particularly reluctant to intervene in Venezuela's internal affairs.

The United States and 53 other countries have formally recognized the interim government of Juan Guaidó. These countries include most members of the EU, Canada, 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea, among others. Some of those countries have undertaken initiatives to increase pressure on Maduro to leave office. Canada, the EU, Panama, and Switzerland have placed targeted sanctions on Maduro officials and have frozen reserves formerly controlled by the Maduro government and/or blocked suspicious financial transactions involving Maduro.⁸³ Other countries have withdrawn their diplomats from Caracas and/or accepted the credentials of diplomats representing the Guaidó government.

While they back a transition leading to Maduro leaving power, the EU and many Western Hemisphere countries (including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and Peru) have opposed the prospect of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.⁸⁴ They and others fear the regional implications that instability and violence spawned by the use of military force could cause, particularly given the armed civilian militias and illegally armed groups in Venezuela, many of which are not under Maduro's control.⁸⁵ Among countries that back a political transition in Venezuela that involves Maduro leaving office, two groups have emerged: the Lima Group and the International Contact Group.

Lima Group

On August 8, 2017, 12 Western Hemisphere countries signed the Lima Accord, a document rejecting what it described as the rupture of democracy and systemic human rights violations in Venezuela.⁸⁶ The signatory countries included Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru. In 2018, Guyana and St. Lucia joined the Lima Group, which did not recognize Maduro's May 2018 reelection.

On January 4, 2019, 13 members of the Lima Group signed a declaration urging President Maduro not to assume power on January 10, 2019.⁸⁷ The countries resolved to reassess their level of diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, implement travel bans or sanctions on Maduro officials (as Canada and Panama have), suspend military cooperation with Venezuela, and urge others in the international community to take similar actions. Under leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico is no longer participating in the Lima Group. El Salvador is likely to join the Lima Group after President-elect Nayib Bukele's June 1 inauguration.

The group has denounced human rights violations by the Maduro government and urged Venezuelan armed forces to demonstrate their loyalty to Guaidó but opposed U.S. or regional military intervention in the crisis. On May 3, 2019, the Lima Group issued a declaration signed by 12 countries (excluding St. Lucia and Guyana but including the interim government of Venezuela) asking the ICG to meet to coordinate efforts and pledging to seek Cuba's help in resolving Venezuela's crisis.⁸⁸ Representatives from the Lima Group and the ICG met at the ministerial level on June 3.

International Contact Group (ICG)

The EU-backed ICG—composed of Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay—first convened on February 7, 2019. The group aimed to "establish necessary guarantees for a credible electoral process, within the earliest time frame possible" and to hasten the delivery of humanitarian aid into Venezuela.⁸⁹ U.S. officials have expressed skepticism at the proposal, noting that Maduro has used past attempts at dialogue (brokered by the Vatican and others) as a delaying tactic. ICG supporters maintain that the "necessary guarantees" include naming a new electoral council, releasing political prisoners, and ending all bans on political parties and candidates.⁹⁰

Since February, the ICG has met twice, most recently on May 6-7 in Costa Rica. At that meeting, also attended by Chile from the Lima Group and representatives from CARICOM and the Vatican, the ICG decided to send a political mission to Caracas (which they did) and to work with the Lima Group to hasten a political solution to the crisis.⁹¹ The ICG backs the dialogue process (discussed below) that has gotten underway in Norway.⁹² China has pledged to work with the EU and others for a political settlement to the Venezuela crisis.⁹³

Cuba, Russia, and China

Within Latin America, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and a few other countries have provided various kinds of support to Maduro and have sought to block anti-Maduro actions within international organizations. Among Maduro's supporters in Latin America, the most significant is Cuba. Cuba's close relationship with Venezuela was solidified in 2000, when the countries signed an agreement for Venezuela to provide Cuba oil in exchange for technical assistance and other services. Estimates of the number of Cuban personnel in Venezuela vary, but a 2014 study estimated that there were 40,000, 75% of whom were health care workers.⁹⁴ It is unclear how many of those professionals have stayed in the country, but Cuban intelligence officers have reportedly helped the Maduro government identify and disrupt coup plots, a role that the Trump Administration has frequently denounced.⁹⁵ Although Cuba has imported oil from other sources to make up for dwindling Venezuelan supplies, the Maduro government remains committed to providing what it can, even if it has to be purchased from other sources.⁹⁶ In April 2019, the Department of the Treasury moved to shut down that flow (and Cuban support for Maduro) by sanctioning 44 vessels and six shipping companies involved in transporting Venezuelan oil, including five companies that have transported Venezuelan oil to Cuba (see "U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela").⁹⁷

Russia has remained a strong ally of the Maduro government. ⁹⁸ Russia's trade relations with Venezuela are currently not significant. However, Venezuela was a major market for Russian arms between 2006 and 2013, with an estimated $4 billion in sales (mostly on credit).⁹⁹ Venezuela reportedly had more than 5,000 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles as of 2017, raising concern about the potential for them being stolen or sold to criminal or terrorist groups.¹⁰⁰ Russian state oil company Rosneft has also invested billions of dollars in Venezuela.¹⁰¹ Russia's 2017 decision to allow Venezuela to restructure $3 billion in debt provided much-needed financial relief to the Maduro government.¹⁰²

Russia has called for the political crisis in Venezuela to be resolved peacefully and without outside interference. It reportedly views support for Maduro as a way to simultaneously oppose U.S. efforts at "regime change" and maintain influence in a region close to the United States.¹⁰³ In December 2018, Maduro visited Russia after which news reports suggested that Rosneft had lent PdVSA $6.5 billion, partly as a prepayment for crude oil.¹⁰⁴ That month, Russia also sent two nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela to conduct joint exercises (the third such deployment since 2008).¹⁰⁵ The Russian government congratulated Maduro on his inauguration and has blocked U.N. Security Council action against Maduro. In March 2019, Russia sent an estimated 100 military personnel and associated equipment to Venezuela, a move the United States denounced.¹⁰⁶

While Russia has both economic and geo-strategic interests in Venezuela and opposes what it views as U.S.-backed efforts at "regime change," China's interest in Venezuela is primarily economic, and the Chinese government has reportedly been in contact with the Guaidó government.¹⁰⁷ From 2007 through 2016, China provided some $62.2 billion in financing to Venezuela.¹⁰⁸ The funds have mostly been for infrastructure and other economic development projects, but China has also provided loans for military equipment to be repaid by oil deliveries.¹⁰⁹ Although the Chinese government has been patient when Venezuela has fallen behind on its oil deliveries, Beijing reportedly stopped providing new loans to Venezuela in fall 2016.¹¹⁰ As previously stated, China, unlike Russia, has signaled a willingness to support dialogue efforts that could result in the convening of new presidential elections in Venezuela.¹¹¹

Dialogue Facilitated by Norway

On May 29, 2019, the Norwegian government, which has remained neutral in the Venezuela crisis, announced that both Maduro and Guaidó representatives had demonstrated a "willingness" to continue trying to reach a political agreement to respond to the country's multifaceted crisis.¹¹² At least two rounds of exploratory talks have been held that have reportedly focused on the convening of new presidential elections with a new electoral authority.¹¹³ Guaidó's supporters argue that Maduro should step down and allow a transitional government to organize those elections, a proposal he has thus far refused.¹¹⁴ Other issues reportedly include political prisoners, the degree to which chavistas can participate in a transition government, humanitarian aid, disarming the colectivos, and how to balance the need for justice for past abuses with a potential amnesty law for those who back a political transition.¹¹⁵

U.S. Policy

The United States has historically had close relations with Venezuela, a major U.S. foreign oil supplier, but friction in relations increased under the Chávez government and has intensified under the Maduro government. For more than a decade, U.S. policymakers have had concerns about the deterioration of human rights and democratic conditions in Venezuela and the lack of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics and counterterrorism efforts. During this time, Congress has provided funding to support democratic civil society in Venezuela. As Maduro has become increasingly authoritarian, the Obama and Trump Administrations have increasingly turned to sanctions, first targeted on specific officials and then aimed at broader portions of the Venezuelan economy, to encourage a return to democracy in the country. More recently, U.S. humanitarian assistance has supported Venezuelans who have fled to neighboring countries.

Since January 2019, the United States has coordinated its efforts with Guaidó. On January 10, 2019, the U.S. State Department condemned Maduro's "illegitimate usurpation of power." President Trump recognized Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela on January 23 and has encouraged other governments to do the same. The Administration has imposed targeted sanctions (visa bans and sanctions blocking access to assets) on additional Maduro officials and their families, blocked the Maduro government's access to revenue from Venezuela's state oil company, and employed broader sanctions aimed at choking off other sources of revenue. In response to the interim government's request, the Administration has pre-positioned emergency assistance for Venezuelans on the country's borders. President Trump and other Administration officials have repeatedly asserted that "all options are on the table" to address the Venezuela situation, including the use of U.S. military force.¹¹⁶ Most analysts agree that a U.S. military intervention is unlikely. Some Members of Congress have expressed serious concerns about any U.S. military action in Venezuela, and such a policy is opposed by virtually all U.S. allies in the region.¹¹⁷

U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela¹¹⁸

The United States has increasingly employed sanctions as a policy tool in response to activities of the Venezuelan government and Venezuelan individuals. As the political and economic crisis in Venezuela has deepened, the Trump Administration has significantly expanded sanctions on Venezuela, relying on both existing sanctions and new executive orders. In particular, recent U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have targeted specific Venezuelan officials, the Maduro government's access to the U.S. financial system, and Venezuela's oil and gold sectors, which are key sectors and sources of financing for the Maduro government. The Trump Administration has cited a number of serious concerns about the Maduro government in expanding sanctions including, among others, human rights abuses, usurpation of power from the democratically elected National Assembly, rampant public corruption, degradation of Venezuela's infrastructure and environment through economic mismanagement and confiscatory mining and industrial practices, and its role in creating a regional migration crisis by neglecting the needs of the Venezuelan people.¹¹⁹

Targeted Sanctions on Venezuelan Officials

The Trump Administration has used existing authorities to sanction a number of Venezuelan officials. In particular, the Trump Administration has sanctioned 75 Venezuelan government and military officials pursuant to E.O. 13692, issued by President Obama in March 2015 to implement the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-278).¹²⁰ Among its provisions, the law requires the President to impose sanctions (asset blocking and visa restrictions) against those whom the President determines are responsible for significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses associated with protests in February 2014 or, more broadly, against anyone who has directed or ordered the arrest or prosecution of a person primarily because of the person's legitimate exercise of freedom of expression or assembly. In 2016, Congress extended the 2014 act through 2019 in P.L. 114-194.

Under the Obama Administration, the Department of the Treasury froze the assets of seven Venezuelans—six members of Venezuela's security forces and a prosecutor involved in repressing antigovernment protesters—pursuant to E.O. 13692. Under the Trump Administration, the Department of the Treasury designated for sanctions an additional 75 Venezuelan government and military officials. These officials include Maduro and his wife, Cecilia Flores; Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez; PSUV First Vice President Diosdado Cabello; eight Supreme Court members; the leaders of Venezuela's army, national guard, and national police; four state governors; the director of the Central Bank of Venezuela; and the foreign minister.

The Trump Administration has also blocked the assets and travel of two high-ranking officials in Venezuela, including then-Vice President Tareck el Aissami and Pedro Luis Martin (a former senior intelligence official) pursuant to Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (P.L. 106-120, Title VIII; 21 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.). Including those individuals, the Department of the Treasury has now imposed economic sanctions on at least 22 individuals with connections to Venezuela and 27 companies by designating them as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Kingpin Act.

For a discussion on terrorism-related sanctions related to Venezuela, see "Terrorism" section below.

Sanctions Restricting Venezuela's Access to U.S. Financial Markets

Starting in 2017, President Trump has sought to cut off U.S. sources of financing for the Venezuelan government. In August 2017, President Trump issued E.O. 13808 to prohibit access to U.S. financial markets by the Venezuelan government, including PdVSA, with certain exceptions to minimize the impact on the Venezuelan people and U.S. economic interests.¹²¹ The sanctions restrict the Venezuelan government's access to U.S. debt and equity markets, traditionally an important source of capital for the government and PdVSA.

In 2018, the Trump Administration issued two additional executive orders to further tighten Venezuela's access to U.S. currency. E.O. 13827, issued in March 2018, prohibits U.S. investors from purchasing or transacting in Venezuela's new digital currency, the petro. This is designed to help the government raise funds and circumvent U.S. sanctions.¹²² E.O. 13835, issued in May 2018, prohibits U.S. investors from buying debt or accounts receivable with the Venezuelan government, including PdVSA. This is devised to close off an "avenue for corruption" used by Venezuelan government officials to enrich themselves.¹²³

Sanctions on Venezuela's Oil and Gold Sectors

Beginning in late 2018, the Trump Administration has rolled out a series of new sanctions focused on Venezuela's oil, gold, financial, defense, and security sectors. In November 2018, President Trump issued E.O. 13850, which blocks the assets of, and prohibits transactions with, those entities operating in Venezuela's gold sector (or any other sector of the economy as determined in the future by the Treasury Secretary) or responsible for or complicit in transactions involving deceptive practices or corruption in the Venezuelan government.¹²⁴ Three subsequent determinations issued by Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin expanded the reach of E.O. 13850 to include the other sectors.¹²⁵

Over subsequent months, a number of individuals and entities have been sanctioned pursuant to E.O. 13850, including five individuals involved in a corruption scheme involving Venezuela's currency exchange practices, PdVSA (with general licenses issued by Office of Foreign Assets Control [OFAC] to allow certain transactions and activities related to PdVSA and its subsidiaries), the Moscow-based Evrofinance Mosnarbank (jointly owned by Russia and Venezuela) for helping PdVSA funnel its cash flow from oil sales, Venezuela's state-owned gold sector company—Minerven—for using illicit gold operations to help Maduro financially, state-affiliated Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank and five of its subsidiaries that the Maduro government uses to move money outside of Venezuela, 44 vessels and six shipping companies involved in transporting Venezuelan oil, and Venezuela's central bank in order to cut off its access to U.S. currency and limit its ability to conduct international financial transactions.

Debate over the Efficacy of U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela

The Trump Administration has significantly ratcheted up sanctions on Venezuela, hitting key targets including Maduro himself, the state-owned oil and gold companies, and the Venezuelan central bank, among others. The Administration has also started targeting foreign firms doing business with Venezuela ("secondary sanctions") in its sanctions on foreign shipping companies transporting Venezuelan oil. At the same time, the Administration is starting to demonstrate some flexibility in its sanctions policy with the lifting of sanctions against the former head of Venezuela's intelligence service, General Manuel Cristopher Figuera, in May 2019 after he broke ranks with Maduro. To date, the Administration to date has stopped short of more aggressive sanctions, including on companies in other countries that purchase Venezuelan oil, although such sanctions have reportedly been considered.¹²⁶

In terms of economic effects of the sanctions, the results are mixed. The sanctions have contributed to the Maduro government's financial problems, including default on most of its loans and inability to raise new financing.¹²⁷ However, the Maduro government has, to some extent, been able to work with Chinese and Russian governments to help fill financing gaps and continue to sell gold reserves to raise funds despite U.S. sanctions.¹²⁸ Some analysts are also concerned that the stronger sanctions on PdVSA are further exacerbating Venezuela's difficult humanitarian crisis, already marked by shortages of food and medicines and mass migration, by limiting the country's key source of revenue.¹²⁹ This is a particular concern in the event that Maduro remains in power over an extended period of time.

In terms of the sanctions' political effects, the imposition of targeted sanctions on individuals in the Maduro government has not encouraged many of those who were not yet sanctioned to abandon Maduro or changed the behavior of the sanctioned individuals. Instead, some officials (such as former vice president Tareck el Aissami and interior minister Nester Reverol) received promotions after being designated for sanctions by the United States, making their futures more dependent on remaining loyal to Maduro. While some have praised the Administration for removing the sanctions on General Figuera after he backed Guaidó, others have questioned how willing or able the U.S. government will be to lift sanctions on others, particularly in cases involving the Kingpin Act or for those who face U.S. criminal indictments.¹³⁰ Observers have urged the Administration to coordinate the imposition or removal of future sanctions, including travel restrictions, with allies such as the EU and Canada, which have enacted similar sanctions.¹³¹ Broader U.S. sanctions adopted since 2017 have yet to compel Maduro to leave office despite the country's increasingly dire economic situation. They have also provided a foil on which Maduro has blamed the country's economic problems. Energy Sector Concerns and U.S. Economic Sanctions¹³²

Venezuela's petroleum sector has experienced a general decline since the beginning of 2011, when crude oil production averaged approximately 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) for the year. Prior to financial sanctions being imposed on PdVSA in August 2017 (E.O. 13808), oil production had already declined to approximately 1.8 million bpd.

Sanctions included in E.O. 13808 place limits on the maturity of new debt that U.S. entities can extend to PdVSA to 90 days. This limitation made it more difficult for PdVSA to pay for oil-related services and acquire certain oil production equipment. PdVSA has dealt with its fiscal problems by delaying payments and paying service providers with promissory notes in lieu of payments.¹³³ There are concerns that delayed payments and promissory notes would count as new credit and, if their maturity exceeds 90 days, would violate sanctions. These payment issues have contributed to the slowdown in oil production, although they have not halted it.¹³⁴ The financial sanctions also prevent PdVSA from receiving cash distributions from its U.S.-based Citgo refining subsidiary. While it is difficult to accurately quantify the impact of E.O. 13808 financial sanctions, data in Figure 4 suggest that Venezuela's oil production decline accelerated following the imposition of financial access restrictions on PdVSA.

As previously described, the Secretary of the Treasury determined on January 28, 2019 that persons (e.g., individuals and companies) operating in Venezuela's oil sector are subject to sanctions—pursuant to E.O. 13850—the goal being to apply economic pressure on the Maduro government. Subsequently, Treasury's OFAC added PdVSA—including all entities in which PdVSA has a 50% or more ownership position—to its Specifically Designated Nationals list. This designation blocks PdVSA's U.S. assets and prohibits U.S. persons from dealing with the company. These sanctions will affect several areas in which U.S. companies have business interests (e.g., debt/financial transactions and oil field services) and will effectively terminate U.S.-Venezuela petroleum (crude oil and petroleum products) trade. This is significant for Venezuela, as the United States was the primary cash buyer for exported crude oil.

Figure 4. Venezuela Crude Oil Production and U.S. Imports

January 2011-February 2019

Source: Venezuela crude oil production data from Energy Intelligence via Bloomberg L.P. U.S. import data from the Energy Information Administration.

Petroleum trade between the United States and Venezuela has been bilateral but has historically been dominated by Venezuela crude oil exports to the United States. Similar to oil production trends in Venezuela, U.S. oil imports of Venezuelan crude oil have been steadily declining since at least 2011 (see Figure 4) when import volumes were approximately 1 million bpd during certain months. When sanctions were imposed on PdVSA in January 2019, U.S. oil imports of Venezuelan crude oil were approximately 500,000 bpd. General licenses issued by OFAC allowed for U.S. entities to continue purchasing Venezuelan crude oil until April 28, 2019.¹³⁵ However, payments made to PdVSA for imported petroleum during the wind-down period had to be made into a U.S.-based blocked account. This element of the petroleum trade sanctions motivated PdVSA to immediately seek alternative cash buyers.¹³⁶ U.S. imports declined by 50% to approximately 250,000 bpd in the first month following the PdVSA designation.

Venezuela's oil production since January 2019 has been further challenged by access to petroleum blending components—referred to as diluents—and ongoing power outages that have affected oil production operations.¹³⁷ PdVSA sanctions imposed in January 2019 prohibited U.S. diluent exports to Venezuela immediately. There was no wind-down period for this trade element. The characteristics of a large portion of Venezuela's crude oil—generally a heavy, low-viscosity, high-sulfur crude oil type—requires blending this crude oil with lighter petroleum materials in order to achieve a viscosity sufficient for transportation and processing. Typical diluents used for crude oil blending include naphtha and condensate, both light petroleum liquids that Venezuela has been importing from the United States. There are other non-U.S. diluent sources, and PdVSA will have to source diluent materials from alternative suppliers. However, it may take some time to secure alternative suppliers, and this constraint causes additional difficulty for PdVSA to continue its oil production operations. Furthermore, power outages in Venezuela have been reported since the January sanctions took effect.¹³⁸ Limited power access is also creating difficulties for PdVSA oil production activities as pumping and processing equipment require power to operate.¹³⁹

Direct impacts to U.S. oil refineries are somewhat difficult to assess due to the wind-down period provided by general licenses, opportunities to source similar crude oil types from other nonsanctioned countries, and refinery maintenance activities during the first half of 2019 that limited demand for oil import volumes. Mexico, Colombia, Canada, and Iraq are examples of countries that export crude oil with similar quality characteristics to that of Venezuela's heavy crude oil. However, movements in oil price benchmarks since January indicate that the differential between light sweet (low sulfur) and heavy sour (high sulfur) crude oil has narrowed. This price behavior can affect profit margins for refineries optimally configured to process heavy crude oil.¹⁴⁰

U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance¹⁴⁹

The U.S. government is providing humanitarian and emergency food assistance and helping to coordinate and support regional response efforts. As of April 10, 2019 (latest data available), the United States has committed to providing more than $213.3 million since FY2017 for Venezuelans who have fled to other countries and for the communities hosting Venezuelan refugees and migrants, including nearly $130 million to Colombia.¹⁵⁰ (Humanitarian funding is drawn primarily from the global humanitarian accounts in annual Department of State/Foreign Operations appropriations acts.) From October through December 2018, the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort was on an 11-week medical support deployment to work with government partners in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Honduras, in part to assist with arrivals from Venezuela. The Comfort is scheduled to deploy for another five-month deployment in June.¹⁵¹

In Colombia, the U.S. response aims to help the Venezuelan arrivals as well as the local Colombian communities that are hosting them. In addition to humanitarian assistance, the United States is providing $37 million in bilateral assistance to support medium and longer-term efforts by Colombia to respond to the Venezuelan arrivals.

In February 2019, the United States responded to Guaidó's request for immediate international humanitarian assistance. To date, along with other partners working in the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. government has pre-positioned nearly 546 metric tons of assistance in Colombia, Brazil, and Curacao to help tens of thousands of Venezuelans, including 208 metric tons in the border city of Cúcuta alone. The aid includes food, medical supplies, hygiene kits, nutrition products, and water purification and storage units. According to the Colombian government, some of that assistance is now going to be distributed to Venezuelans and communities sheltering them in Colombia.¹⁵²

U.S. Democracy Assistance

For more than a decade, the United States has provided democracy-related assistance to Venezuelan civil society through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

From 2002 through 2010, USAID supported small-grant and technical assistance activities through its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) to provide assistance monitoring democratic stability and strengthening the county's democratic institutions. At the end of 2010, USAID's support for such activities in Venezuela was transferred from OTI to USAID's Latin America and Caribbean Bureau. U.S. democracy and human rights assistance to Venezuela amounted to $15 million to civil society groups in Venezuela in FY2018 and $17.5 million in FY2019.

The Administration's proposed FY2020 budget asks for $9 million in democracy aid and authority to transfer up to $500 million to support a transition or respond to a crisis in Venezuela. On May 20, 2019, the House Appropriations Committee reported its version of the FY2020 Department of State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (H.R. 2389), which would provide $17.5 million in democracy and human rights aid to Venezuela.

NED has funded democracy projects in Venezuela since 1992. U.S. funding for NED is provided in the annual State Department and Foreign Operations appropriations measure, but country allocations for NED are not specified in the legislation. In 2018, NED funded 40 projects in Venezuela totaling roughly $2.0 million as compared to $2.6 million in 2017.¹⁵³

Organized Crime-Related Issues

Venezuela has among the highest crime victimization and homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region with the highest homicide rates in the world.¹⁵⁴ According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, the homicide rate in Venezuela declined in 2018 (81.4 homicides per 100,000 people) as compared to a rate of 89.1 per 100,000 people in 2017, with part of that decline attributed to migration that has reduced the population.¹⁵⁵ The impunity rate for homicide in Venezuela is roughly 92%.¹⁵⁶ Although many homicides have been committed by criminal groups, extrajudicial killings by security forces and allied armed civilian militias (colectivos) have also been rising.¹⁵⁷ In September 2018, Amnesty International published a report describing how security forces have adopted militarized approaches to public security that have resulted in numerous human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings.¹⁵⁸

A May 2018 report by Insight Crime identified more than 120 high-level Venezuelan officials who have engaged in criminal activity, which has blurred the lines between crime groups and the state.¹⁵⁹ Many of those officials have allegedly engaged in drug trafficking (discussed below), but others have reportedly deputized illegal groups in the neighborhoods and prisons, run smuggling operations in border areas, and engaged in illegal gold mining.¹⁶⁰

Counternarcotics

Venezuela's pervasive corruption and extensive 1,370-mile border with Colombia have made the country a major transit route for cocaine destined for the United States and an attractive environment for drug traffickers and other criminals to engage in money laundering. In 2005, Venezuela suspended its cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after alleging that DEA agents were spying on the government, charges U.S. officials dismissed as baseless. Prior to that time, the governments had negotiated an antidrug cooperation agreement (an addendum to a 1978 Bilateral Counternarcotics agreement) that would have enhanced information-sharing and antidrug cooperation. Venezuela has yet to approve that agreement.

Since 2005, Venezuela has been designated annually as a country that has failed to adhere to its international antidrug obligations, pursuant to international drug-control certification procedures in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, FY2003 (P.L. 107-228). In September 2018, President Trump designated Venezuela as one of two countries not adhering to its antidrug obligations.¹⁶¹ At the same time, President Trump waived economic sanctions that would have curtailed U.S. assistance for democracy programs.

The State Department reported in its 2019 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) that Venezuela was one of the preferred trafficking routes for the transit of illicit drugs out of South America, especially cocaine, because of the country's porous border with Colombia, economic crisis, weak judicial system, lacking international counternarcotics cooperation, and permissive and corrupt environment. The report notes the following:

• Cocaine is trafficked via aerial, terrestrial, and maritime routes, with most drug flights departing from Venezuelan states bordering Colombia and maritime trafficking that includes the use of large cargo containers, fishing vessels, and "go-fast" boats.
• The vast majority of drugs transiting Venezuela in 2018 were destined for the Caribbean, Central America, the United States, West Africa, and Europe. Colombian drug-trafficking organizations—including multiple criminal bands, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN)—facilitate drug transshipment through Venezuela. Mexican drug-trafficking organizations also operate in the country.
• Venezuelan officials reported conflicting statistics, with the attorney general asserting that the government had seized 20 metric tons of drugs between August 2017 and October 2018 and another official maintaining that seizures from January through September 2018 alone exceeded 22 metric tons.
• Venezuelan authorities "failed to make demonstrable efforts to combat illegal drug activity and prosecute corrupt officials or suspected drug traffickers, including those sanctioned by the United States government."¹⁶²

if and when there is a change in government.

Energy Sector Challenges⁶⁷

Oil revenues are an important element of Venezuela's economy and account for approximately 98% of the country's export earnings.⁶⁸ Venezuela holds the largest amount of oil reserves in the world with more than 300 billion barrels of proven reserves at the end of 2017.⁶⁹ However, oil production and export volumes have been trending downward over the last four years. In 2015, oil production in Venezuela averaged 2.37 million barrels per day (b/d).⁷⁰ Oil production declined to average 1.9 million b/d in 2017.⁷¹ In March 2018, the International Energy Agency projected that Venezuela's crude oil production would continue declining to just over 1 million b/d and remain at that level until 2023 (see Figure 3).⁷² Actual oil production in Venezuela has generally followed the projected trend with production in November 2018 averaging approximately 1.13 million b/d.⁷³

Figure 3. Venezuela Crude Oil Production, 2012-2023

Source: International Energy Agency, Oil 2018, March 2018.

PdVSA's performance has been affected by a number of factors. Since August 2017, the Maduro government has arrested many executives for alleged corruption, which dissidents within the company assert has been a false pretense for replacing technocrats with military officers.⁷⁴ Workers at all levels reportedly are abandoning the company by the thousands.⁷⁵ Production has been challenged by aging infrastructure, bottlenecks created by PdVSA's inability to pay service companies and producers, and shortages of inputs (such as light crudes for blending) used to process its heavy crude oil.⁷⁶ Massive debt (estimated at some $25 billion),⁷⁷ combined with U.S. sanctions limiting the willingness of banks to issue credit to PdVSA and the fact that much of its production does not generate revenue, have added to the company's woes.⁷⁸ When Conoco sought to seize PdVSA facilities in the Caribbean over nonpayment of past debts in mid-2018, tankers with crude oil began backing up and the company could not satisfy all of its deliveries.⁷⁹

Corruption remains a major drain on the company's revenues and an impediment to performance. In 2016, a report by the National Assembly estimated that some $11 billion disappeared at PdVSA from 2004 to 2014.⁸⁰ In February 2018, U.S. prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing former executives in Venezuela's energy ministry and PdVSA of laundering more than $1 billion in oil income.⁸¹ Corruption, as well as looting and misuse of infrastructure, has continued since a military general with no experience in the sector took control of the company in late 2017 and replaced technocrats with military officers and other loyalists.⁸²

Declining production by PdVSA-controlled assets, through 2015 contrasted with the performance of joint ventures that PdVSA has with Chevron, CNPC, Gazprom, Repsol, and others. From 2010 to 2015, production declined by 27.5% in fields solely operated by PdVSA, whereas production in fields operated by joint ventures increased by 42.3%.⁸³ The future of these ventures is uncertain, however, as Maduro's government arrested executives from Chevron in April 2018 after they reportedly refused to sign an agreement under unfair terms. Although they were released in June, Chevron and other companies have scaled back their operations.⁸⁴ Instead of relying on experienced partners, military officials with little expertise have signed contracts for basic functions, including drilling, with little-known companies that lack experience.⁸⁵

PdVSA has also been under pressure to make payments to bondholders and to Canadian miner Crystallex in order to prevent the transfer of Citgo ownership control. Crystallex was awarded a $1.4 billion settlement in 2011 by the International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes that was linked to Venezuela seizing the company's gold prospects in 2007. A Delaware court issued a decision that would have allowed Crystallex to seize PDV Holding, the PdVSA subsidiary that is Citgo's parent company. Venezuela reached an agreement with Crystallex to make a payment installment towards the $1.4 billion settlement in November 2018. In December 2018, it was reported that Venezuela had violated terms of the settlement agreement. This results in some uncertainty about the path forward for Crystallex to collect on its arbitration award and the potential future of Citgo ownership control. ⁸⁶

The Administration has imposed sanctions on Venezuela that are designed to affect PdVSA business operations. Sanctions that specifically affect PdVSA include those that limit access to debt finance for business activities. Generally, limiting PdVSA's access to debt potentially results in difficulties for the company financing business activities and also results in PdVSA having to access non-U.S. sources of capital. To date, the Administration has not imposed sanctions that might target petroleum trade between the United States and Venezuela, which is bilateral but heavily weighted towards U.S. refinery purchases of Venezuelan crude oil (see "Energy Sector Concerns and Potential U.S. Sanctions," below).

Humanitarian Situation⁸⁷

Growing numbers of people continue to leave Venezuela for urgent reasons, including insecurity and violence; lack of food, medicine, or access to essential social services; and loss of income. As the pace of arrivals from Venezuela has quickened, neighboring countries, particularly Colombia, are straining to absorb a population that is often malnourished and in poor health. According to a 2017 national survey on living conditions, the percentage of Venezuelans living in poverty increased from 48.4% in 2014 to 87% in 2017.⁸⁸ Poverty has been exacerbated by shortages in basic consumer goods, as well as by bottlenecks and corruption in the military-run food importation and distribution system.⁸⁹ Basic food items that do exist are largely out of reach for the majority of the population due to rampant inflation. Between 2014 and 2016, Venezuela recorded the greatest increase in malnourishment in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region in which only eight countries recorded increases in hunger.⁹⁰ According to Caritas Venezuela (an organization affiliated with the Catholic Church), 15% of children surveyed in August 2017 suffered from moderate to severe malnutrition and 30% showed stunted growth.⁹¹

Venezuela's health system has been affected severely by budget cuts, with shortages of medicines and basic supplies, as well as doctors, nurses, and lab technicians. Some hospitals face critical shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, and even food, and 50% of operating rooms in public hospitals are not in use.⁹² According to the Venezuelan Program of Education-Action in Human Rights (PROVEA), a 2018 national hospital survey, 88% of hospitals lack basic medicines and 79% lack basic surgical supplies.⁹³ In addition, a June 2018 Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) report estimated that some 22,000 doctors (33% of the total doctors that were present in 2014) and at least 3,000 nurses had emigrated.⁹⁴

In February 2017, Venezuela captured international attention following the unexpected publication of data from the country's Ministry of Health (the country had not been releasing such data since 2015). The report revealed significant spikes in infant and maternal mortality rates.⁹⁵ By 2017, the infant mortality rate in Venezuela was reportedly 79% higher than it had been in 2011, according to World Bank data.⁹⁶

PAHO's June 2018 report also documented the spread of previously eradicated infectious diseases like diphtheria (detected in July 2016) and measles (detected in July 2017).⁹⁷ Malaria, once under control, is also spreading rapidly, with more than 400,000 cases recorded in 2017 (a 198% increase over 2015). Increasing numbers of people have also reportedly died from HIV/AIDS in Venezuela due to the collapse of the country's once well-regarded HIV treatment program and the scarcity of drugs needed to treat the disease.⁹⁸ Observers are concerned that the lack of access to reliable contraception may hasten the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and dangerous clandestine abortions.⁹⁹

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reportedly helping the government purchase and deliver millions of vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella.¹⁰⁰ Nevertheless, doctors and health associations have urged the U.N. entity to provide more assistance and exert more pressure on the government to address the health crisis. Moreover, while President Maduro has publicly rejected offers of international humanitarian assistance, in November 2018, the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) allocated $9.2 million for Venezuela to be provided through U.N. entities, such as the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), WHO, and UNHCR.¹⁰¹ This emergency humanitarian funding is to support projects providing nutritional support to children under five years old, pregnant women and lactating mothers at risk, and emergency health care and other aid for the vulnerable, including the displaced and host communities in Venezuela.¹⁰²

Regional Migration Crisis

Based on conservative figures from UNHCR and other experts, more than 3 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants had left the country by November 2018, with the vast majority remaining in the Latin America and Caribbean region.¹⁰³ As of November 2018, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there were over 1 million Venezuelans living in Colombia, 500,000 in Peru, 220,000 in Ecuador 130,000 in Argentina, 100,000 in Chile, 94,000 in Panama, and 85,000 in Brazil. Taken as a percentage of their overall population, Venezuelan arrivals have also significantly impacted smaller countries and territories in the Caribbean. For example, Trinidad and Tobago, a twin-island country with 1.4 million people, estimated in late 2018 that it was hosting some 60,000 Venezuelans, which increased its overall population by more than 4%.¹⁰⁴ By the end of 2019, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimate that the number of Venezuelan refugees and migrants could reach over 5.3 million.¹⁰⁵ Although not all of the Venezuelans who have fled the country in recent years may be considered refugees, a significant number are in need of international protection.

Figure 4. Venezuelan Migrants and Asylum Seekers: Flows to the Region and Beyond

Source: CRS.

Responses to the Venezuelan arrivals vary by country and continue to evolve with events on the ground. (See Figure 4.) Between September 2014 and 2018, roughly 400,000 Venezuelans in the region and beyond (in the United States, Canada, Spain, and elsewhere) applied for political asylum (specific legal protection for which most migrants do not qualify.) As of October 2018, a further 960,000 Venezuelan arrivals in Latin America had been granted alternative legal forms of stay (which typically enables access to social services and the right to work.) Humanitarian experts are most concerned about the roughly 60% of Venezuelans in neighboring countries who lack identification documents. The Venezuelan government has made it increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to obtain a valid passport and therefore legal status outside the country. Those who lack status are vulnerable to arrest and deportation by governments and to abuse by criminal groups, including human trafficking.

This is a significant displacement crisis for the Western Hemisphere, which has in place some of the highest international and regional protection standards for displaced and vulnerable persons. Neighboring countries are under pressure to examine their respective migration and asylum policies and to address, as a region, the legal status of Venezuelans who have fled their country.

Humanitarian organizations and governments are responding to the needs of displaced Venezuelans in the region.¹⁰⁶ Protection and assistance needs are significant for arrivals and host communities. Services provided vary by country but include support for reception centers and options for shelter; emergency relief items, such as emergency food assistance, safe drinking water, and hygiene supplies; legal assistance with asylum applications and other matters; protection from violence and exploitation; and the creation of temporary work programs and education opportunities.

International Humanitarian Assistance. U.N. agencies and other international organizations have launched appeals for additional international assistance, and the U.S. government is providing humanitarian assistance and helping to coordinate regional response efforts (see "U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance," below). The U.N. Secretary-General appointed UNHCR and IOM to coordinate the international response, which includes U.N. entities, nongovernmental organizations, the Red Cross Movement, faith-based organizations, and civil society. Former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein has been appointed the U.N. Joint Special Representative for Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants to promote dialogue and consensus in the region and beyond on the humanitarian response.

In mid-December 2018, UNHCR and IOM launched the regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), which is the first of its kind in the Americas: an operational and coordination strategy "responding to the needs of Venezuelans on the move and securing their social and economic inclusion in the communities receiving them."¹⁰⁷ The RMRP was put together by 95 organizations covering 16 countries. The RMRP is also an appeal for $738 million in funding to support over 2 million Venezuelans and half a million people in host communities. It focuses on four key areas: direct emergency assistance, protection, socio-economic and cultural integration and strengthening capacities in the receiving countries.¹⁰⁸

Foreign Relations

The Maduro government has maintained Venezuela's foreign policy alliance with Cuba and a few other leftist governments in Latin America, but the country's ailing economy has diminished its formerly activist foreign policy, which depended on its ability to provide subsidized oil to 17 other Caribbean Basin countries.¹⁰⁹ President Maduro has increasingly relied on financial backing from China and Russia. Unlike under Chávez, an increasing number of countries have criticized authoritarian actions taken by the Maduro government, brought concerns about Venezuela to regional and global organizations, and implemented targeted sanctions against its officials.¹¹⁰

Since more than 50 countries did not recognize the results of the May 2018 presidential elections and do not consider his current presidency legitimate, Maduro is likely to face increasing international isolation.¹¹¹ The OAS has voted not to recognize the legitimacy of Maduro's current term, mirroring the U.S. and EU positions. Paraguay has broken diplomatic ties with the Maduro government and Peru has recalled its last diplomat from Caracas and pledged not to permit Venezuelan officials to travel through its territory.¹¹² Other countries may follow suit.

Venezuela's foreign relations have become more tenuous as additional countries have sanctioned its officials. In September 2017, Canada implemented targeted sanctions against 40 Venezuelan officials deemed to be corrupt; it added another 14 individuals, including President Maduro's wife, following the May elections.¹¹³ In November 2017, the EU established a legal framework for targeted sanctions and adopted an arms embargo against Venezuela to include related material that could be used for internal repression. These actions paved the way for targeted EU sanctions on seven Venezuelan officials in January 2018. On June 25, 2018, the Council of the EU sanctioned 11 additional individuals for human rights violations and undermining democracy and called for new presidential elections to be held. Those sanctions will remain in place through late 2019.¹¹⁴ In March 2018, Panama and Switzerland sanctioned Venezuelan officials. Additional sanctions by these countries are possible now that they consider Maduro's mandate illegitimate.

Latin America and the Lima Group

Ties between Venezuela and a majority of South American countries have frayed with the rise of conservative governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru and with Maduro's increasingly authoritarian actions. In December 2016, the South American Common Market (Mercosur) trade bloc suspended Venezuela over concerns that its government had violated the requirement that Mercosur's members have "fully functioning democratic institutions."¹¹⁵ Six UNASUR members—Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Paraguay—issued a joint statement opposing the Venezuelan Supreme Court's attempted power grab in March 2017. According to the Colombian government, it is working with other South American countries to create a new regional entity to replace UNASUR and isolate Venezuela.¹¹⁶

Concerned about potential spillover effects from turmoil in Venezuela, Colombia has supported OAS actions, provided humanitarian assistance to Venezuelan economic migrants and asylum seekers, and closely monitored the situation on the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Colombian President Ivan Duque and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have pledged to support efforts to hasten Maduro's exit from power.¹¹⁷ Tensions remain high along the border with Guyana after the U.N. proved unable to resolve a long-standing border-territory dispute between the countries and referred the case to the International Court of Justice in January 2018. Venezuela's navy stopped ExxonMobile ships doing seismic surveys for the Guyanese government in December 2018.¹¹⁸

On August 8, 2017, 12 Western Hemisphere countries signed the Lima Accord, a document rejecting the rupture of democracy and systemic human rights violations in Venezuela, refusing to recognize the ANC, and criticizing the government's refusal to accept humanitarian aid.¹¹⁹ The signatory countries are Mexico; Canada; four Central American countries (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama); and six South American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru). Although the Lima Group countries support targeted U.S. economic sanctions, most reject any discussion of military intervention and most are not in favor of restrictions on U.S. petroleum trade with Venezuela.¹²⁰

On February 13, 2018, Guyana and St. Lucia joined the Lima Group as it issued a statement calling for the Maduro government to negotiate a new electoral calendar that is agreed upon with the opposition and to accept humanitarian aid.¹²¹ These nations also backed Peru's decision to disinvite President Maduro to the Summit of the Americas meeting of Western Hemisphere heads of state in April 2018. The Lima Group did not recognize the results of the May 20, 2018, Venezuelan elections.¹²² Its members were among the 19 countries that voted in favor of an OAS resolution on Venezuela approved on June 5, 2018.¹²³ The resolution said that the electoral process in Venezuela "lacks legitimacy" and authorized countries to take "the measures deemed appropriate," including sanctions, to assist in hastening a return to democracy in Venezuela.

On January 4, 2019, thirteen members of the Lima Group (excluding Mexico) signed a declaration that urged President Maduro not to assume power on January 10, 2019 and to cede control of the country to the National Assembly until elections can be held.¹²⁴ The signatories resolved to reassess their level of diplomatic engagement with Venezuela, implement travel bans or sanctions (where possible) on high-level Maduro government officials, suspend military cooperation and arms transfers to Venezuela, and evaluate whether to give loans to the Maduro government at regional and international financial institutions, among other measures. While Mexico had previously been an active member of the Lima Group, the leftist government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has adopted policy of nonintervention in foreign affairs and did not vote for the measure. While some have criticized this policy shift, others maintain that Mexico could perhaps arbitrate between the government and the opposition.¹²⁵

Those same thirteen countries also joined with the United States and five others to support a January 10, 2019 OAS resolution on Venezuela not recognizing the legitimacy of Maduro's second term. (See Appendix B for OAS efforts on Venezuela.)

The Maduro government has continued to count on political support from Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, which, together with Venezuela, were key members of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA), a group launched by President Chávez in 2004. Caribbean members of ALBA—Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines—had, until recently, been reluctant to take action that could anger the Maduro government. Since Lenín Moreno took office in May 2017, the Ecuadorian government (another ALBA member) has been critical of the Maduro government. Most of these governments abstained from the June 5, 2018, OAS vote on the legitimacy of the election in Venezuela, with only Bolivia, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines voting with Venezuela and against the measure. In January 2019, Ecuador and Haiti voted in favor of the OAS measure that deemed Maduro's second term illegitimate, only Bolivia, Dominica, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname voted with Venezuela and against the measure.

Cuba's close relationship with Venezuela was solidified in 2000, when the countries signed an agreement for Venezuela to provide Cuba at least 90,000 barrels of oil per day (b/d) in exchange for technical assistance and other services. Estimates of the number of Cuban personnel in Venezuela vary, but a 2014 study estimated that there were 40,000, 75% of whom were health care workers.¹²⁶ At that time, the report said that the number of Cuban military and intelligence advisors in Venezuela may have ranged from hundreds to thousands, coordinated by Cuba's military attaché in Venezuela. It is unclear how many of those professionals have stayed in the country, but Cuban intelligence officers have reportedly helped the Maduro government identify and disrupt coup plots.¹²⁷ Although Cuba has imported more oil from Russia and Algeria to make up for dwindling Venezuelan supplies since 2017, the Maduro government remains committed to providing what it can, even if it has to be purchased from other sources.¹²⁸

China and Russia

As Venezuela's economic situation has deteriorated, maintaining close relations with China and Russia, the country's largest sources of financing and investment, has become a top priority.¹²⁹ From 2007 through 2016, China provided some $62.2 billion in financing to Venezuela.¹³⁰ The money typically has been for funding infrastructure and other economic development projects, but has also included some lending for military equipment.¹³¹ It is being repaid through oil deliveries. Although the Chinese government has been patient when Venezuela has fallen behind on its oil deliveries, it reportedly stopped providing new loans to Venezuela in fall 2016.¹³²

Some observers have criticized China for its continued support to the Venezuelan government and questioned whether a new Venezuelan government might refuse to honor the obligations incurred under Maduro.¹³³ China refrained from negative commentary after the Constituent Assembly elections and accepted the May 2018 election results. It has responded to U.S. sanctions by stating that "unilateral sanctions will make the situation even more complicated."¹³⁴

Russia has remained a strong ally of the Maduro government. It has called for the political crisis in Venezuela to be resolved peacefully, with dialogue, and without outside interference.¹³⁵ Russia's trade relations with Venezuela currently are not significant, with $336 million in total trade in 2016, with $334 million, consisting of Russian exports to Venezuela.¹³⁶ However, Venezuela had been a major market for Russian arms sales between 2001 and 2013, with over $11 billion in sales. Press reports in May 2017 asserted that Venezuela had more than 5,000 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, raising concern by some about the potential for them being stolen or sold to criminal or terrorist groups.¹³⁷ Russia's 2017 decision to allow Venezuela to restructure $3.15 billion in debt provided much-needed financial relief to the Maduro government.¹³⁸ Russian state oil companies Rosneft and Gazprom have large investments in Venezuela. Both are seeking to expand investments in Venezuela's oil and gas markets¹³⁹ (see "Energy Sector Concerns," below).

Russia congratulated President Maduro on his reelection and inauguration.¹⁴⁰ Maduro visited Russia to seek investment in early December 2018 after which news reports suggested that Rosneft has lent PdVSA $6.5 billion, partly as a prepayment for crude oil.¹⁴¹ Russia then sent two nuclear-capable jets to Venezuela to conduct joint exercises (which also occurred in 2008 and 2013) in mid-December in a show of support for the government.¹⁴²

U.S. Policy

The United States historically has had close relations with Venezuela, a major U.S. foreign oil supplier, but friction in relations increased under the Chávez government and has intensified under the Maduro regime. For more than a decade, U.S. policymakers have had concerns about the deterioration of human rights and democratic conditions in Venezuela and the lack of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics and counterterrorism efforts. U.S. officials have expressed increasing concerns regarding Colombian criminal and terrorist groups in Venezuela. U.S. democracy and human rights funding, which totaled $15 million in FY2018, and political support have bolstered democratic civil society in Venezuela. U.S. humanitarian assistance is supporting Venezuelans who have fled to neighboring countries.

The United States has employed various sanctions in response to concerns about the activities of the Venezuelan government or Venezuela-linked individuals and entities.¹⁴³ Targeted sanctions escalated after President Maduro usurped the power of the National Assembly by holding constituent assembly elections on July 30, 2017. In the wake of the May 2018 elections that the United States and much of the international community deemed illegitimate, the Trump Administration has sought to increase pressure on the Maduro government in order to hasten a return to democracy in Venezuela.¹⁴⁴ The Administration has ratcheted up targeted sanctions on Venezuelan officials accused of corruption, antidemocratic actions, or human rights abuses under Executive Order (E.O.) 13692 (issued by President Obama in 2015) and on Venezuela-linked individuals and entities for drug trafficking. President Trump issued three executive orders restricting the government and PdVSA's ability to access the U.S. financial system (E.O. 13808), barring U.S. purchases of Venezuela's new digital currency (E.O. 13827), and prohibiting U.S. purchases of Venezuelan debt (E.O. 13835). E.O. 13850, issued in November 2018, created a framework to sanction those who operate in Venezuela's gold sector or those deemed complicit in corrupt transactions involving the government.

Following President Maduro's second inauguration, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo pledged to "use the full weight of U.S. economic and diplomatic power to press for the restoration of Venezuelan democracy."¹⁴⁵ National Security Adviser John Bolton lent support to National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó's decision "to invoke protections under Venezuela's constitution and declare that Maduro does not legitimately hold the country's presidency."¹⁴⁶ Vice President Pence has also lent his support to Guaidó.¹⁴⁷ According to U.S. officials, forthcoming U.S. actions could limit or prohibit petroleum trade with Venezuela.¹⁴⁸ Some analysts maintain that oil sanctions could hasten the regime's demise, whereas others caution that such sanctions could inflict further suffering on the Venezuelan people.

U.S. Democracy Assistance

For more than a decade, the United States has provided democracy-related assistance to Venezuelan civil society through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

From 2002 through 2010, USAID supported small-grant and technical assistance activities through its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) to provide assistance monitoring democratic stability and strengthening the county's democratic institutions. At the end of 2010, USAID's support for such activities in Venezuela was transferred from OTI to USAID's Latin America and Caribbean Bureau. U.S. democracy and human rights assistance to Venezuela amounted to $4.3 million in each of FY2014 and FY2015 and $6.5 million in FY2016, provided through the Economic Support Fund (ESF) funding account. U.S. assistance totaled $7 million in FY2017, provided through the Development Assistance Account.

The Trump Administration did not request any assistance for democracy and human rights programs in Venezuela for FY2018. Nevertheless, Congress provided $15 million in democracy and human rights assistance to civil society groups in Venezuela in P.L. 115-141.

For FY2019, the Trump Administration requested $9 million to support democracy and human rights programs in Venezuela that strengthen civil society, democratic institutions and processes, and independent media. Congress has yet to enact a full-year FY2019 appropriations measure, although a series of continuing resolutions provided FY2019 funding through December 21, 2018. Legislation to fund foreign aid programs for the remainder of FY2019 could incorporate provisions from the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations measures that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees approved during the 115^th Congress. The House Committee bill (H.R. 6385) recommended providing $15 million for programs in Venezuela, while the Senate Committee bill (S. 3108) recommended $20 million.

As noted above, NED has funded democracy projects in Venezuela since 1992. U.S. funding for NED is provided in the annual State Department and Foreign Operations appropriations measure, but country allocations for NED are not specified in the legislation. In FY2017, NED funded 43 projects in Venezuela totaling $2.6 million (up from $1.6 million in FY2016).¹⁴⁹

U.S. Humanitarian and Related Assistance¹⁵⁰

The U.S. government is providing humanitarian and emergency food assistance and helping to coordinate and support regional response efforts. As of September 30, 2018 (latest data available), U.S. government humanitarian funding for the Venezuela regional response totaled approximately $96.5 million for both FY2017 and FY2018 combined, of which $54.8 million was for Colombia. (Humanitarian funding is drawn primarily from the global humanitarian accounts in annual Department of State/Foreign Operations appropriations acts.) From October through the end of December, the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort was on an 11-week medical support deployment to work with government partners in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Honduras, in part to assist with arrivals from Venezuela.

In Colombia, the U.S. response aims to help the Venezuelan arrivals as well as the local Colombian communities that are hosting them. In addition to humanitarian assistance, the United States is also providing $37 million in bilateral assistance to support medium and longer-term efforts by Colombia to respond to the Venezuelan arrivals.

Targeted Sanctions Related to Antidemocratic Actions, Human Rights Violations, and Corruption¹⁵¹

In Venezuela, as in other countries, the U.S. government has used targeted sanctions to signal disapproval of officials who have violated U.S. laws or international human rights norms and to attempt to deter others from doing so. Targeted sanctions can punish officials or their associates who travel internationally and hold some of their assets in the United States without causing harm to the population as a whole. Some argue that sanctioning additional Venezuelan officials might help to increase pressure on the Maduro government to cede power or at least stop violating human rights, whereas others argue that increased sanctions would only encourage Maduro and his allies to harden their positions.

In December 2014, the 113^th Congress enacted the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-278). Among its provisions, the law required (until December 31, 2016) the President to impose sanctions (asset blocking and visa restrictions) against those whom the President determined were responsible for significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses associated with the 2014 protests or, more broadly, against anyone who had directed or ordered the arrest or prosecution of a person primarily because of the person's legitimate exercise of freedom of expression or assembly. In July 2016, Congress enacted legislation (P.L. 114-194) extending the termination date of the requirement to impose sanctions until December 31, 2019.

In March 2015, President Obama issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13692, which implemented P.L. 113-278 and went beyond the requirements of the law. The E.O. authorized targeted sanctions against (1) those involved in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions; (2) those involved in significant acts of violence or conduct constituting a serious abuse or violation of human rights; (3) those involved in actions that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or peaceful assembly; or (4) those senior Venezuelan officials involved in public corruption.¹⁵²

The Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on 65 Venezuelans pursuant to E.O. 13692. In March 2015, the Department of the Treasury froze the assets of six members of Venezuela's security forces and a prosecutor involved in repressing antigovernment protesters. Under the Trump Administration, the Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against an additional 65 Venezuelans pursuant to E.O. 13692, including members of the Supreme Court, CNE, Cabinet, Constituent Assembly, and security forces (army, national guard, and police). On July 31, 2017, the Administration imposed sanctions on President Maduro, one of four heads of state subject to U.S. sanctions. On May 18, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on four current or former Venezuelan officials, including Diosdado Cabello. In September 2018, Treasury sanctioned four members of President Maduro's inner political circle, including his wife Celia Flores and executive vice president Delcy Rodriguez.

Other Targeted Sanctions. On November 1, 2018, President Trump signed E.O. 13850, creating a framework to sanction those who operate in Venezuela's gold sector (where much of the gold is produced illegally) or those deemed complicit in corrupt transactions involving the government (see "Illegal Mining," below). In January 2019, sanctions were imposed under that Executive Order against seven individuals including a former Venezuelan treasurer and a television magnate, and 23 companies involved in a scheme to bribe the government and steal $2.4 billion in state funds.¹⁵³

Trafficking in Persons Sanctions. Since 2014, Venezuela has received a Tier 3 ranking in the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) reports. U.S. assistance to Venezuela has not been subject to TIP-related sanctions, since the democracy and human rights aid provided goes to nongovernmental organizations and has been deemed to be in the U.S. national interest.¹⁵⁴ According to the June 2018 TIP report, although the government arrested seven trafficking suspects, it did not provide any data on prosecutions or convictions, victims identified, or any other anti-trafficking efforts.

Sanctions Restricting Venezuela's Access to U.S. Financial Markets

President Trump signed E.O. 13808, effective August 25, 2017, imposing new sanctions that restrict the Venezuelan government's access to U.S. financial markets, which has been an important source of capital for the government and PdVSA.¹⁵⁵ According to the White House, the measures "are carefully calibrated to deny the Maduro dictatorship a critical source of financing to maintain its illegitimate rule, protect the U.S. financial system from complicity in Venezuela's corruption and in the impoverishment of the Venezuelan people, and allow for humanitarian assistance."¹⁵⁶ Sanctions targeting sovereign debt are unusual, but not unprecedented.¹⁵⁷

The sanctions seek to cut off new funds flowing from U.S. investors or through the U.S. financial system to the Maduro government. To this end, sanctions restrict transactions by U.S. investors or within the United States related to new debt issued by the Venezuelan government and PdVSA. U.S. persons are also prohibited from purchasing securities from the Venezuelan government. Additionally, CITGO—whose parent company is PdVSA—is prohibited from distributing profits to the Venezuelan government, though it can continue its operations in the United States. Additionally, the sanctions target new short-term debt (less than 30 days for the Venezuelan government and less than 90 days for PdVSA). This ensures continued access to short-term financing that facilitates U.S. trade with Venezuela, including U.S. imports of oil from Venezuela. Concurrent with the release of the Executive Order in August, Treasury issued licenses to minimize the impact of sanctions on U.S. economic interests and on the Venezuelan people.¹⁵⁸

When the sanctions were announced in August 2017, there was debate about whether they would push Venezuela to default, or whether the government would find alternative sources of financing through new oil-for-loan deals with Russia and China or taking cash from PdVSA. Most economists agree that the sanctions made the fiscal position of the government more difficult, as many international banks ceased all financial transactions with Venezuela, and as sanctions accelerated the decline in Venezuelan oil exports to the United States.¹⁵⁹

In 2018, the Trump Administration issued two additional executive orders to further tighten Venezuela's access to U.S. financial markets. Executive Order 13827, issued in March 2018, prohibits U.S. investors from purchasing or transacting in Venezuela's new digital currency, the petro, designed to help the government raise funds and circumvent U.S. sanctions. Executive Order 13835, issued in May 2018, prohibits U.S. investors from buying debt or accounts receivable with the Venezuelan government, including PdVSA, measures devised to close off an "avenue for corruption" used by Venezuelan government officials to enrich themselves.¹⁶⁰

Organized Crime-Related Issues

Venezuela has among the highest crime victimization and homicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region with the highest homicide rates in the world.¹⁶¹ According to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory (OVV), the homicide rate in Venezuela declined in 2018 (81.4 homicides per 100,000 people) as compared to a rate of 89.1 per 100,000 people in 2017, with part of that decline attributed to migration that has reduced the population.¹⁶² The impunity rate for homicide in Venezuela is roughly 92%.¹⁶³ Although many homicides have been committed by criminal groups, extrajudicial killings by security forces and allied armed civilian militias (collectivos) also have been rising.¹⁶⁴ In September 2018, Amnesty International published a report describing how security forces have adopted militarized approaches to public security that have resulted in numerous human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings.¹⁶⁵

A May 2018 report by Insight Crime identified more than 120 high-level Venezuelan officials who have engaged in criminal activity, which has blurred the lines between crime groups and the state.¹⁶⁶ Many of those officials allegedly have engaged in drug trafficking (discussed below), but others reportedly have deputized illegal groups in the neighborhoods and prisons, run smuggling operations in border areas, and extracted revenue from state industries. In 2016, a National Assembly committee estimated that kleptocracy had cost the country some $70 billion.¹⁶⁷

Counternarcotics

Venezuela's pervasive corruption and extensive 1,370-mile border with Colombia have made the country a major transit route for cocaine destined for the United States and an attractive environment for drug traffickers and other criminals to engage in money laundering. In 2005, Venezuela suspended its cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) after alleging that DEA agents were spying on the government, charges U.S. officials dismissed as baseless. Prior to that time, the governments had negotiated an antidrug cooperation agreement (an addendum to a 1978 Bilateral Counternarcotics agreement) that would have enhanced information-sharing and antidrug cooperation. Venezuela has yet to approve that agreement.

Since 2005, Venezuela has been designated annually as a country that has failed to adhere to its international antidrug obligations, pursuant to international drug-control certification procedures in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, FY2003 (P.L. 107-228). In September 2018, President Trump designated Venezuela as one of two countries not adhering to its antidrug obligations.¹⁶⁸ At the same time, President Trump waived economic sanctions that would have curtailed U.S. assistance for democracy programs.

The State Department reported in its 2018 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) that Venezuela was one of the preferred trafficking routes for the transit of illicit drugs out of South America, especially cocaine, because of the country's porous border with Colombia, economic crisis, weak judicial system, sporadic international counternarcotics cooperation, and permissive and corrupt environment. The report notes the following:

• Cocaine is trafficked via aerial, terrestrial, and maritime routes, with most drug flights departing from Venezuelan states bordering Colombia and maritime trafficking that includes the use of large cargo containers, fishing vessels, and "go-fast" boats. Maritime trafficking may have increased in 2017.
• The vast majority of drugs transiting Venezuela in 2017 were destined for the Caribbean, Central America, the United States, West Africa, and Europe. Colombian drug-trafficking organizations—including multiple criminal bands, the FARC, and the National Liberation Army (ELN)—facilitate drug transshipment through Venezuela. Mexican drug-trafficking organizations also operate in the country.
• Despite a nearly 134% increase in coca cultivation from 2013 to 2016 and a more than 200% increase in potential cocaine production in Colombia, the report states that Venezuelan antidrug forces seized only 32 metric tons (MT) of drugs in the first six months of 2016 (the most recent data available), compared to 66 MT in the first eight months of 2015. They also reported seizing two cocaine labs in the state of Zulia in August 2017.
• "Venezuelan authorities do not effectively prosecute drug traffickers, in part due to political corruption," but Venezuelan law enforcement officers also "lack the equipment, training, and resources required to impede the operations of major drug trafficking organizations."¹⁶⁹
• Venezuela and the United States continue to use a 1991 bilateral maritime agreement to cooperate on interdiction. In 2016, Venezuela worked with the U.S. Coast Guard in six maritime drug interdiction cases (down from 10 in 2015).

In addition to State Department reports, a report by Insight Crime entitled Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: the Cartel of the Suns describes in detail how the Venezuelan military, particularly the National Guardnational guard, has been involved in the drug trade since 2002.¹⁷⁰163 It names officials who have been sanctioned or accused of drug trafficking-related crimes, as well as others for whom there is significant evidence of their involvement in the drug trade. Insight Crime also has has also documented how the Cartel of the Suns has interacted with illegally armed groups and drug traffickers in Colombia, trafficked cocaine through the Dominican Republic and Honduras, and engaged in corruption with politicians and businesses in El Salvador.¹⁷¹

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Recent cases in the United States also demonstrate the involvement of high-level Venezuelan officials or their relatives in international drug trafficking. President Maduro either hashas either dismissed those cases or appointed the accused to Cabinet positions, where they presumably willwill presumably be protected from extradition. Some observers have maintained that it may therefore be difficult to persuade officials to leave office through democratic means if, once out of power, they would likely would face extradition and prosecution in the United States.¹⁷²

On August 1, 2016, the U.S. Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment from 2015 against two Venezuelans for cocaine trafficking to the United States. The indictment alleged that General Néstor Luis Reverol Torres, former general director of Venezuela's National Anti-Narcotics Office (ONA) and former commander of Venezuela's National Guard, and Edylberto José Molina, former subdirector of ONA, participated in drug-trafficking activities from 2008 through 2010.¹⁷³ President Maduro responded by appointing General Reverol as Minister of Interior and Justice in charge of the country's police forces.

In December 2017, two nephews of First Lady Cilia Flores—Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efraín Antonio Campo Flores—were sentenced to 18 years in a U.S. federal prison for conspiring to transport cocaine into the United States. The two nephews had been arrested in Haiti in November 2015 and convicted in the United States in November 2016.¹⁷⁴

The Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions on at least 22 individuals and 27 companies with connections to Venezuela for narcotics trafficking by designating them as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act, P.L. 106-120, Title VIII; 21 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.).¹⁷⁵ On February 13, 2017, the Department of the Treasury imposed drug-trafficking sanctions against then-Vice President Tareck el Aissami and an associate.¹⁷⁶

face extradition and prosecution in the United States.¹⁶⁵

In December 2017, two nephews of First Lady Cilia Flores—Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efraín Antonio Campo Flores—were sentenced to 18 years in a U.S. federal prison for conspiring to transport cocaine into the United States. The two nephews had been arrested in Haiti in November 2015 and convicted in the United States in November 2016.¹⁶⁶

Money Laundering

In addition to drug trafficking, the 20182019 INCSR discusses Venezuela's high level of vulnerability to money laundering and other financial crimes. According to the report, money laundering is widespread in the country and is evident in industries ranging from government currency exchanges to banks to real estate to metal and oil. Venezuela's currency-control system requires individuals and firms to purchase hard currency from the government's currency commission at a fixed exchange rate, which has created incentives for trade-based money laundering.

Venezuela revised its laws against organized crime and terrorist financing in 2014 but excluded the government and state-owned industries from the scope of any investigations. The unit charged with investigating financial crimes has "limited operational capabilities," and there is a lack of political will in the judicial system to combat money laundering and corruption.¹⁷⁷167 The 20182019 INCSR concludes that Venezuela's "status as a drug transit country, combined with weak AML supervision and enforcement, lack of political will, limited bilateral cooperation, an unstable economy, and endemic corruption" make the country vulnerable to money laundering.¹⁷⁸168 As an example, in mid-June 2018, a U.S. district judge sentenced the Florida owners of a construction equipment export company who had been found guilty of laundering and transferring $100 million from Venezuela to bank accounts in the United States and other countries.¹⁷⁹

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On September 20, 2017, the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network advised U.S. financial institutions to report any suspicious financial transactions that could have a nexus with Venezuela.¹⁸⁰170 The advisory urges U.S. institutions to exercise increased scrutiny over transactions that may involve lesser-known state-owned enterprises connected to the government. It also warns that recent sanctions against Venezuelan officials could "increase the likelihood that other non-designated Venezuelan senior political figures may seek to protect their assets."

Illegal Mining

Although more than 95% of Venezuela's export revenue comes from oil and gas exports, gold mining, both licit and illicit, has accelerated as the country's economy has collapsed in the face of low global oil prices and an ongoing political crisis. According to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, 91% of gold produced in Venezuela was mined illegally—the highest rate in Latin America, even prior to the current crisis.¹⁸¹171 Over the past three years, a boom in illegal mining in Venezuela reportedly has has reportedly contributed to deforestation and environmental degradation in indigenous areas, clashes between rival criminal gangs and violence committed by those gangs against miners whom they extort, and an outbreak of malaria (a disease that had been eradicated).¹⁸²172 According to numerous reports, the illegal mining industry also commits various human rights violations, reportedly including the forcible recruitment of child labor from the indigenous Yanomami tribe.¹⁸³173

Colombian Illegally Armed Groups Operating in Venezuela

Illegally armed groups are active on both sides of the Colombia-Venezuelan border. Former Colombian paramilitaries (the Rastrojos), reportedly control important gasoline smuggling routes between Venezuela and Colombia. National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas from Colombia have sought to control illicit gold mining areas near the Colombia-Guyana border.¹⁸⁴ Both theColombian-Venezuelan border. Venezuela's instability, weak institutions, and lawlessness have attracted the attention of drug trafficking and illegally armed groups from Colombia. The ELN, which is still engaged in armed conflict with the Colombian governmentin Colombia, and its rival, the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), reportedly recruit Venezuelans to cultivate coca, the basic plant component of cocaine.¹⁷⁴ Colombia's ELN guerrillas have moved from seeking safe haven in Venezuela to taking control of illicit gold mining areas in some parts of the country. The Rastrojos, a criminal group that contains former paramilitaries, reportedly controls important gasoline smuggling routes between Venezuela and Colombia reportedly recruit Venezuelans to cultivate coca. Human trafficking and sexual exploitation of Venezuelan migrants is prevalent in Colombia and border regions straddling the countries. Finally, expertsMany observers assert that dissident FARC guerrillas are using border areas to regroup; they may also be coordinating efforts with the ELN.¹⁸⁵.¹⁷⁵

Violence among these groups and between the groups and the Venezuelan government has escalated, threatening security on both sides of the border. Conflict between the ELN and the EPL over control of the cocaine trade led to an August 2018 daytime shootout in a town on the Colombian side of the border in which eight people died.¹⁸⁶176 Since early 2018, Freddy Bernal, an official on the U.S. Kingpin List who allegedly supplied arms to the FARC, has served as head of security in Táchira state bordering Colombia. After Bernal ordered an elite police unit to arrest members of the Rastrojos, the group attacked a Venezuelan military base in October 2018, killing three soldiers.¹⁸⁷177 The ELN reportedly killed three Venezuelan national guardsmen in Amazonas state in November 2018.¹⁸⁸178 As this violence has occurred, Colombia has also protested periodic crossings into its territory by Venezuelan troops.¹⁸⁹

179

Terrorism

The Secretary of State has determined annually, since 2006, that Venezuela has not been "cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts" pursuant to Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA). Per the AECA, such a designation subjects Venezuela to a U.S. arms embargo, which prohibits all U.S. commercial arms sales and retransfers to Venezuela. The most recent determination was made in May 2018.

2019.¹⁸⁰

In 2008, the Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions (asset freezing and prohibitions on transactions) on two individuals and two travel agencies in Venezuela for providing financial support to Hezbollah, which the Department of State has designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The action was taken pursuant to E.O. 13224, aimed at impeding terrorist funding.

The State Department's most recent annual terrorism report, issued in September 2018, stated that "country's porous borders offered a permissive environment to known terrorist groups."¹⁹⁰181 Unlike in years past, the report did not identify any specific terrorist groups or sympathizers present in the country.¹⁹¹182 This designation would trigger an array of sanctions, including aid restrictions, requirement for validated export licenses for dual-use items, and other financial restrictions.¹⁹²183 Critics caution there is a lack of evidence to conclude that the Venezuelan government has "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," as required by law.¹⁹³

Energy Sector Concerns and Potential U.S. Sanctions¹⁹⁴

Petroleum trade between the United States and Venezuela is bilateral, although heavily weighted toward Venezuelan crude oil exports to U.S. refiners. Traditionally, Venezuela has been a major supplier of crude oil imports into the United States, but the amount, value, and relative share of U.S. oil imports from Venezuela declined in recent years. In 2017, Venezuela was the fourth-largest foreign supplier of crude oil to the United States (behind Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico), providing an average of 618,000 b/d, down from 1.5 million b/d in 2015 (see Figure 5). U.S. oil imports from Venezuela have continued to decline in 2018 to a reported annual average of roughly 500,000 b/d, the lowest since 1989.¹⁹⁵

Figure 5. U.S. Imports of Venezuelan Oil

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), as prepared by CRS Graphics.

Oil is by far Venezuela's major export to the United States. According to U.S. trade statistics, Venezuela's oil exports to the United States were valued at $11.7 billion in 2017, accounting for 95% of Venezuela's exports to the United States.¹⁹⁶ This figure is down from $29 billion in 2014, reflecting the steep decline in the price of oil.

In addition to importing crude oil from Venezuela, the United States also exports light crude oil and other product inputs to Venezuela needed to blend with and refine Venezuelan heavy crude oil. About half of U.S. exports to Venezuela consist of light crude oil and other oil product inputs.

The decline in U.S. imports of oil from Venezuela is driven by a number of factors, including Venezuela's decreased production and increased U.S. oil imports from Canada.¹⁹⁷ U.S. sanctions also are making oil imports from Venezuela more difficult. Under the sanctions, U.S. partners can extend new credit to PdVSA for up to 90 days only. PdVSA has dealt with its fiscal problems by delaying payments and paying service providers with promissory notes in lieu of payments.¹⁹⁸ There are concerns that delayed payments and promissory notes would count as new credit and, if their maturity exceeds 90 days, would violate sanctions. These payment issues have contributed to the slowdown in oil production, although they have not halted it.¹⁹⁹

Various sanction options on Venezuela's petroleum sector reportedly have been considered by the Trump Administration as a potential means of applying economic pressure on the Maduro government. Generally, the economic impact of sanctions will depend on the timing (e.g., immediate versus phased) of each option as well as whether or not such sanctions are unilateral (i.e., U.S. only) or multilateral (i.e., U.S. cooperation with other countries). The greatest impact could come from prohibiting Venezuelan petroleum exports to the United States, the largest element of petroleum trade between the countries.

From Venezuela's perspective, the country would lose access to a close-proximity market that provides much-needed cash flow to the government. Venezuela would need to find alternative markets for these crude volumes, with India and China being likely destinations. Initially, in order to sell crude to alternative markets, Venezuelan oil may need to be price discounted. The magnitude of this discount is uncertain, and the financial impact would depend on the prevailing market price of crude oil at the time such a prohibition might be introduced.

U.S. oil refiners also would be affected by a prohibition on Venezuelan oil imports. Initially, prices for substitute crude oils likely would rise to attract alternative sources of supply (e.g., Canada and Iraq). Although a limited number of U.S. refiners acquire crude oil from Venezuela, any crude oil price increase likely would impact all refiners. U.S. oil producers, however, would benefit financially from an increase in oil prices.

PdVSA-Rosneft Financing Deal: Implications for U.S. Energy Security As Venezuela's economic situation has become more precarious and PdVSA has struggled to pay its debts, some U.S. policymakers have expressed concerns about Russian involvement in the Venezuelan oil industry. In 2016, PdVSA secured a $1.5 billion loan from the Russian state oil company Rosneft. PdVSA used 49.9% of its shares in CITGO as collateral for the loan. If PdVSA were to default on the loan from Rosneft, Rosneft would gain the 49.9% stake in CITGO. CITGO, based in Texas, owns substantial energy assets in the United States, including three oil refineries, 48 terminal facilities, and multiple pipelines. Some policymakers are concerned that Rosneft could gain control of critical U.S. energy infrastructure and pose a serious risk to U.S. energy security.200 There are also questions about whether the transaction would be compliant with U.S. sanctions on Rosneft. In a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee in May 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicated that any such transaction would be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).201 In August 2017, it was reported that the Trump Administration stands ready to block the transaction.202 Reportedly, Rosneft is negotiating to swap its collateral in CITGO for oilfield stakes and a fuel supply deal, but those talks do not appear to have progressed.203 U.S. investors are seeking to acquire the collateral in CITGO held by Rosneft, to prevent Rosneft from controlling nearly half of CITGO in the event of a full default by PdVSA. The transaction requires a license from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC); the request has received technical approval but is awaiting a final decision.204

U.S. Support for Organization of American States Efforts on Venezuela

Over the past three years, the U.S. government has supported the organization's efforts under Secretary General Luis Almagro to address the situation in Venezuela. Although the United States' ability to advance its policy initiatives within the OAS generally has declined as Latin American governments have adopted more independent foreign policy positions, OAS efforts on Venezuela have complemented U.S. objectives. (See Appendix B for details on OAS efforts.)

OAS Secretary General Almagro (who assumed his position in May 2015) has spoken out strongly about the situation in Venezuela. On May 31, 2016, the Secretary General invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter, Article 20—a collective commitment to promote and defend democracy—when he called on the OAS Permanent Council to convene an urgent session on Venezuela to decide whether "to undertake the necessary diplomatic efforts to promote the normalization of the situation and restore democratic institutions."²⁰⁵ He issued a report on the political and economic situation in Venezuela, concluding that there were "serious disruptions of the democratic order" in the country.²⁰⁶ The Permanent Council received the report, but struggled until mid-2018 to achieve consensus on how to respond to the evolving crises.

In March 2017, OAS Secretary General Almagro issued a new report to the Permanent Council, which called on the Venezuelan government to undertake a series of measures to resume the constitutional order, or face a suspension from the OAS.²⁰⁷ It called on OAS member states to apply Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to suspend Venezuela from the organization if the Venezuelan government failed to address the report recommendations positively within 30 days. An affirmative vote of two-thirds of the member states (23) in a special session of the General Assembly would be necessary to suspend Venezuela from the organization.

Although a suspension would demonstrate Venezuela's diplomatic isolation, it is unclear whether it would affect the Maduro government's policies. In May 2017, President Maduro instructed his foreign minister to begin the process for Venezuela to withdraw from the OAS in protest of its recent actions, the first time in OAS history that a country has sought to quit.²⁰⁸ The withdrawal process, which takes two years, would require Venezuela to pay $8.8 million in back dues.²⁰⁹

Despite the deteriorating situation in Venezuela, some countries were reluctant in 2017 to follow Almagro's lead in responding to the situation in Venezuela. During the OAS General Assembly meeting in June 2017, 20 countries voted in favor of adopting a resolution to press the Venezuelan government to take concrete actions, but it failed because it needed 23 votes.

In the absence of consensus within the General Assembly, Secretary General Almagro continued to speak out against actions taken by the Maduro government.²¹⁰ He issued a report in July 2017 describing abuses committed by the government against protesters and another in September 2017 denouncing the consolidation of Venezuela's "dictatorial regime" with the formation of the Constituent Assembly.²¹¹ The Secretary General initiated a process to analyze whether the Maduro government's abuses against its citizens constitute crimes against humanity meriting a referral to the ICC. The process culminated in the May 29, 2018 publication of a report with information gathered by the General Secretariat backed by a legal assessment by independent jurists that the Maduro government's actions merit a referral to the ICC.²¹² Although some observers have praised Secretary-General Almagro's outspoken activism on Venezuela, others have asserted that he and the OAS are unlikely to be trusted by anyone in the Maduro government as a mediator that could help resolve the current crisis.²¹³

Since the May 2018 election, a majority of countries within the OAS Permanent Secretariat have voted against the Maduro government. On June 5, 2018, it approved a resolution declaring that the May 20, 2018, electoral process in Venezuela "lacks legitimacy" and authorizing countries to take "measures deemed appropriate," including financial sanctions, to assist in hastening a return to democracy in Venezuela.²¹⁴ On January 10, 2019, the Permanent Council approved a resolution agreeing "to not recognize the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro's new term." Secretary-General Almagro has gone further, announcing over social media that he "welcomes the assumption of Juan Guaidó as interim President of Venezuela in accordance with Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution" on January 11, 2019.²¹⁵

Outlook

For some time, analysts have debated how long President Maduro can retain his grip on power amid a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis and how best to help hasten a return to electoral democracy in Venezuela. Despite his reelection and inauguration to a second term, President Maduro faces increasing threats to his control over the country. Under the leadership of a little-known figure, Juan Guaidó of the VP party, the National Assembly has issued a direct challenge to the legitimacy of Maduro's presidency. Maduro still controls the military, but recent arrests of high-level military officials have signaled dissent within the forces. It remains to be seen how they will respond to the National Assembly's approval of a framework for the formation of a transition government and an amnesty law for any military members who support that transition. It is yet unclear whether and under what circumstances Juan Guaidó would accept calls for him to declare himself interim president and how Maduro and the international community would respond to such a development.

The Trump Administration has worked bilaterally and multilaterally to increase pressure on the Maduro government while also providing assistance to neighboring countries hosting more than 3 million Venezuelans who have fled the country. In addition to ratcheting up targeted sanctions, the Administration has implemented broader sanctions limiting Venezuela and PdVSA's access to the U.S. financial market. Until now, the Administration had stopped short of implementing even stronger measures, such a ban on petroleum trade with Venezuela, partially out of concern that this could worsen the country's humanitarian crisis. Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo have condemned Maduro's term as illegitimate, recognized the National Assembly as the only legitimate institution in the country, and lent support to Juan Guaidó and the National Assembly. While some have urged the Administration to take more aggressive measures even though they could contribute to unrest in the country, others have maintained that support for a negotiated solution is the best course of action.

The 116^th Congress may consider a number of measures to address the deteriorating situation in Venezuela and its impact on the broader Latin American region. Congress is likely to continue to fund and oversee foreign assistance for democracy and human rights programs to bolster civil society in Venezuela as well as humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans in neighboring countries. Congress could consider a measure to authorize U.S. humanitarian assistance as well. Other measures may be introduced to adjust the immigration status of Venezuelans living in the United States or to provide certain Venezuelans temporary protected immigration status. Congress may consider taking additional steps to try to influence the Venezuelan government's behavior in promoting a return to democracy through additional sanctions or other policies. Oversight issues may examine the role of external actors operating in Venezuela (such as Russia and China) and the impact of the crisis in Venezuela on the broader region. Should a change in government occur, Congress may authorize additional support for reconstruction of the country.

Appendix A. Legislative Initiatives in the 115^th Congress

Enacted Legislation and Approved Resolutions

P.L. 115-31 (H.R. 244). Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017. Introduced January 4, 2017, as the Honoring Investments in Recruiting and Employing American Military Veterans Act of 2017; subsequently, the bill became the vehicle for the FY2017 appropriations measure known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017. House agreed to Senate amendments (309-118) May 3, 2017; Senate agreed to House amendment to Senate amendments (79-18) May 4, 2017. President signed into law May 5, 2017. The explanatory statement accompanying the law recommends providing $7 million in democracy and human rights assistance to Venezuelan civil society.

P.L. 115-141 (H.R. 1625). Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018. Originally introduced March 20, 2017, as the Targeted Rewards for the Global Eradication of Human Trafficking Act, in March 2018, the bill became the vehicle for the FY2018 omnibus appropriations measure known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018. House agreed (256-167) to an amendment to the Senate amendment March 22, 2018; Senate agreed (65-32) to the House amendment to the Senate amendment March 23, 2018. President signed into law March 23, 2018. The law requires not less than $15 million in democracy and rule of law assistance to Venezuelan civil society.

P.L. 115-232 (H.R. 5515). John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. Introduced April 13, 2018. House passed (351-66) May 24, 2018. Senate passed (85-10) June 18, 2018, substituting the language of S. 2987, the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. Conference report (H.Rept. 115-874) filed July 25, 2018; House agreed (359-54) to the conference July 26 and Senate agreed (86-10) August 1, 2018. Signed into law August 13, 2018.

In the conference report, the conferees directed the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to submit a report to several key committees on security cooperation between the Russian Federation and Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

H.Res. 259 (DeSantis). Introduced April 6, 2017; reported out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee July 27, 2017, approved by the House December 5, 2017. The resolution expressed concern about the multiple crises that Venezuela is facing; urged the Venezuelan government to hold elections, release political prisoners, and accept humanitarian aid; supported OAS efforts, including a potential temporary suspension of Venezuela from the organization if the government does not convene elections and release political prisoners in a timely manner; and encouraged President Trump to prioritize resolving the crisis in Venezuela, including through the use of targeted sanctions.

S.Res. 35 (Cardin). The resolution expresses support for a dialogue that leads to respect for Venezuela's constitutional mechanisms and a resolution to the multiple crises the country faces, as well as for OAS efforts to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter. The resolution urges full U.S. support for OAS efforts and calls for U.S. agencies to hold Venezuelan officials accountable for violations of U.S. law and international human rights standards. Introduced February 1, 2017. Agreed to in the Senate February 28, 2017.

Select Additional Legislative Initiatives

H.R. 2658 (Engel). Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act of 2017. Introduced May 25, 2017; amended and reported out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee September 28, 2017; approved by the House on December 5, 2017. The bill would have

• directed the State Department and USAID to deliver a strategy within 90 days of the enactment of the act on how they will work through NGOs in Venezuela or in neighboring countries to channel basic medical supplies and services, food and nutritional supplements, and related technical assistance needed to assist the Venezuelan people;
• supported OAS efforts to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter;
• secured a Presidential Statement from the United Nations urging the Government of Venezuela to allow the delivery of humanitarian relief;
• required a report by the Secretary of State, acting through the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, on Venezuelan officials involved in grand corruption, and encourage the imposition of sanctions on those individuals;
• amended P.L. 113-278 to broaden the activities for which Venezuelans can be sanctioned to include engaging in undemocratic practices or public corruption, extend the date for imposing sanctions through 2022, and urge the Administration to encourage other countries to sanction those individuals;
• expressed the sense of the House that the President should take all necessary steps to prevent Rosneft from gaining control of U.S. energy infrastructure.
• required a strategy within 90 days on how U.S. assistance would be coordinated with those of other donors;
• called on the United States to advocate and, if possible, support an OAS election observation mission to Venezuela when it is appropriate; and
• required a report on other countries' activities in Venezuela (Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba) within 180 days of enactment.

S. 1018 (Cardin) Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act of 2017. S. 1018 was introduced May 3, 2017; referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. This bill would have included many of same provisions as H.R. 2658.

In addition to requiring a strategy on how U.S. humanitarian assistance would be coordinated, S. 1018 would have

• authorized $10 million in humanitarian assistance for Venezuela and would require the Secretary of State to provide a strategy on how that assistance would be provided;
• authorized $9.5 million for coordinated democracy and human rights assistance after the Secretary of State submits a strategy on how the funds would be implemented and would make $500,000 available to support any future OAS electoral missions to the country; and
• prioritized continued U.S. support to Caribbean countries that have been dependent on Venezuela for energy.

S. 3486 (Menendez) Venezuela Humanitarian Relief, Reconstruction, and Rule of Law Act of 2018. S. 3486 contains many of the same provisions of H.R. 2658. Introduced December 12, 2018, referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

In addition to requiring a strategy on how U.S. humanitarian assistance would be coordinated, the bill would have

• authorized $40 million in additional humanitarian assistance and required the State Department to convene a donor's conference on Venezuela;
• provided support for international efforts to hold Venezuelan officials accountable for crimes against humanity;
• authorized $15 million for democratic actors and civil society;
• required the Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice to lead international efforts to recover assets stolen by corrupt Venezuelan officials;
• advanced planning for the economic reconstruction of Venezuela, contingent upon a change in governance in the country;
• required more intelligence reporting on Venezuelan officials' roles in drug trafficking and corruption, as well as the role of foreign actors in Venezuela;
• expanded U.S. sanctions on government officials, drug trafficking, and money laundering;
• required the State Department to work with other Latin American governments to develop their own sanctions regimes; and,
• codified existing crypto currency sanctions.

Appendix B. Organization of American States Action on Venezuela

On May 31, 2016, Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary-General Luis Almagro invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter—a collective commitment to promote and defend democracy—when he called (pursuant to Article 20) on the OAS Permanent Council to convene an urgent session on Venezuela to decide whether "to undertake the necessary diplomatic efforts to promote the normalization of the situation and restore democratic institutions."²¹⁶ Secretary-General Almagro issued a report concluding that there were "serious disruptions of the democratic order" in the country.²¹⁷ The Permanent Council met on June 23, 2016, to receive the report, but did not take any further action.

A group of 15 OAS member states issued two statements (in June and August 2016) supporting dialogue efforts but also urging the Venezuelan government to allow the recall referendum process to proceed.²¹⁸ On November 16, 2016, the OAS Permanent Council adopted a declaration that encouraged the Maduro government and the MUD "to achieve concrete results within a reasonable timeframe" and to "avoid any action of violence" that could threaten the process.²¹⁹

As dialogue efforts failed to advance, many observers contended that the Maduro government had used such efforts as a delaying tactic. Secretary-General Almagro published a second report to the Permanent Council in March 2017 calling on the Venezuelan government to undertake measures to resume the constitutional order, including holding general elections without delay, or face a possible suspension from the OAS.²²⁰ It concluded by calling on OAS member states to apply Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to suspend Venezuela from the organization if the Venezuelan government fails to address the report recommendations positively. An affirmative vote of two-thirds of the member states (23) in a special session of the General Assembly would be necessary to suspend Venezuela from the organization.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's March 2017 action, the Permanent Council met in a special meeting called by 20 OAS members on April 3, 2017, and approved a resolution by consensus expressing "grave concern regarding the unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order" in Venezuela.²²¹ The body also resolved to undertake additional diplomatic initiatives as needed "to foster the restoration of the democratic institutional system."

On April 26, 2017, the OAS Permanent Council voted to convene a meeting of the region's ministers of foreign affairs to discuss the situation in Venezuela. Nineteen countries voted in favor of convening the meeting.²²² However, some countries objected to potential statements or actions (such as a temporary suspension from the OAS) opposed by the Venezuelan government based on the organization's principles of nonintervention and respect for national sovereignty.

On May 31, 2017, the OAS convened a meeting of consultation of ministers of foreign affairs to discuss the situation in Venezuela. After much debate, the foreign ministers failed to approve a resolution to address the crisis. Some countries supported a draft resolution put forth by Canada, Panama, Peru, Mexico, and the United States, which called upon the Venezuelan government and the opposition to take a series of steps but also offered humanitarian assistance and willingness to create a "group or other mechanism of facilitation to support a new process of dialogue and negotiation."²²³ Other countries supported a resolution offered by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) calling for dialogue and the creation of an external group to support dialogue between the government and the opposition without the specific preconditions on the government included in the other draft resolution.²²⁴ OAS member states were unable to reach consensus.

Foreign ministers reconvened during the OAS General Assembly in Mexico in June 2017. At those meetings, 20 countries voted in favor of adopting the aforementioned resolution put forth by Peru (and backed by the United States) on Venezuela, six countries voted no, and eight abstained.²²⁵ The foreign ministers could reconvene to continue that meeting at any time.

In September and November 2017, the OAS General Secretariat facilitated public hearings chaired by an International Panel of Experts it invited to analyze whether the Maduro government had committed crimes against humanity. Victims, legislators, mayors, judges, members of the armed forces, civil servants, human rights defenders and others participated.

On February 23, 2018, 19 of 34 member states voted in favor of a resolution by the Permanent Council calling on the Venezuelan government to reconsider convening early presidential elections and to accept humanitarian assistance. While the resolution received more than the simple majority of votes (18) needed to be approved, 15 countries voted against the resolution, abstained, or were not present.²²⁶

On May 29, 2018, the Panel of Experts convened by the OAS published its findings that "reasonable grounds exist to believe that crimes committed against humanity have been committed in Venezuela" in a report that has been submitted to the ICC.²²⁷

On June 5, 2018, 19 of 34 member states voted in favor of a resolution stating that the electoral process in Venezuela "lacks legitimacy" and authorizing countries to take "the measures deemed appropriate," including sanctions, to assist in hastening a return to democracy in Venezuela.²²⁸

In September 2018, the OAS Secretary-General announced the creation of a new working group to analyze Venezuelan migration issues.²²⁹

From November 19-21, 2018 17 OAS member states sent representatives to examine humanitarian conditions along the Colombia-Venezuela border, including Ambassador Carlos Trujillo of the United States.

On January 10, 2019, 19 of 34 member states voted "to not recognize the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro's new term as of the 10^th of January of 2019." The resolution also urged all Member States to adopt any measures they can to hasten a return to democracy in Venezuela, call for new presidential elections in Venezuela with international observers, respond to the humanitarian needs of Venezuelan migrants, and demand the release of political prisoners.

Appendix C. Online Human Rights Reporting on Venezuela

Author Contact Information

Acknowledgments

Carla Davis-Castro, Research Librarian, contributed charts and background information for the appendixes of this report.

Footnotes

5. 38. OAS, "IACHR Condemns the Escalation of Attacks Against Members of the Venezuelan National Assembly," August 29, 2018.

Kevin P. Gallagher and Margaret Myers, "China-Latin America Finance Database," Inter-American Dialogue, 2016, http://www.thedialogue.org/map_list/. Amnesty International, This Is No Way to Live: Public Security and Right to Life in Venezuela, , September 20, 2018. Hereinafter: Amnesty International, September 2018.

181. Samantha Sultoon, "Spotlight: Next Steps with Venezuela," Atlantic Council, April 25, 2019.

1.	Freedom House, Freedom in the World: 2019, at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/venezuela.
2.
2.	Reuters, "Venezuela's Maduro Reelected Amid Outcry over Vote," May 20, 2018. The United States, the EU, the Group of Seven, and most Western Hemisphere countries do not recognize the legitimacy of his mandate.
3.	In the absence of an elected president, the Venezuelan Congress's president must become acting president of a transition government until elections can be called. Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 1999, as amended by Amendment No. 1 of 15 February 2009, Article 233, translation by the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 2010.
4.	CRS In Focus IF11216, Venezuela: International Efforts to Resolve the Political Crisis, by Clare Ribando Seelke.
This section draws from CRS Report R42989, Hugo Chávez's Death: Implications for Venezuela and U.S. Relations, by Mark P. Sullivan; and CRS Report R43239, Venezuela: Issues for Congress, 2013-2016, by Mark P. Sullivan.
36.	Chávez envisionedviewed himself as a leader of an integrated Latin America struggling against an external power (the United States), similar to how Simón Bolívar led the struggle against Spain in the 19th century. Carlos A. Romero and Víctor M. Mijares, "From Chávez to Maduro: Continuity and Change in Venezuelan Foreign Policy," Contexto Internacional, vol. 38, no.1 (2016), pp. 178-188. Beginning inIn 2005, the PetroCaribe program providedbegan providing subsidized oil to many Caribbean and Central American countries; however, the volume of shipments declined after 2012. David L. Goldwyn and Cory R. Gill, The Waning of PetroCaribe? Central American and Caribbean Energy in Transition, Atlantic Council, 2016 (hereinafter Goldwyn and Gill, 2016).
47.	U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Social Panorama of Latin America, 2008, Briefing Paper, November 2008, p. 11; Daniel Hellinger and Anthony Petros Spanakos, "The Legacy of Hugo Chávez," Latin American Perspectives, vol. 44, no. 1, January 2017, pp. 4-15.
58.	Eva Golinger, "Opinion: Chávez was a Maker of Dreams," CNN, March 7, 2013.
69.	Although President Chávez remained widely popular until mid-2001, his standing eroded afterward amid growing concerns by some sectors that he was imposing a leftist agenda on the country and that his government was ineffective in improving living conditions. In April 2002, massive protests and pressure by the military led to the ousting of Chávez from power for less than three days. He ultimately was restored to power by the military after an interim president alienated the military and the public by taking hardline measures, including the suspension of the constitution. Human Rights Watch, "Venezuela: Chávez's Authoritarian Legacy," March 5, 2013.
710.	Francisco Monaldi, The Impact of the Decline in Oil Prices on the Economics, Politics, and Oil Industry in Venezuela, Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, September 2015, pp. 9-13.
811.	Antonio Ramirez, "An Introduction to Venezuelan Governmental Institutions and Primary Legal Sources," New York University Law School Library, May 2016. Hereinafter Ramirez, May 2016.
912.	Ramirez, May 2016;"An Introduction to Venezuelan Governmental Institutions;" CRS Report R43239, Venezuela: Issues for Congress, 2013-2016, by Mark P. Sullivan.
1013.	See also CRS Report R43239, Venezuela: Issues for Congress, 2013-2016, by Mark P. Sullivan.
11.	Some analysts have criticized the Union of South American Nations' (UNASUR's) mediation efforts in Venezuela as favoring regime stability over respect for democracy (i.e., Maduro's concerns over those of the opposition). Carlos Closa and Stefano Palestini, Between Democratic Protection and Self-Defense: the Case of UNASUR and Venezuela, European University Institute, 2015.
12.	U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017: Venezuela, March 2018. Hereinafter: U.S. Department of State, March 2018.
1314.	Those commitments included (1) releasing political prisoners, (2) announcing an electoral calendar, (3) respecting the National Assembly's decisions, and (4) addressing humanitarian needs.
1415.	In February 2017, the government suspended CNN en Español from cable after it aired an investigation into fraudulent Venezuelan passports being sold in Iraq. Associated Press, "Venezuela Shuts Off CNN en Español After Criticizing Channel's Passport-Selling Report," AP, February 15, 2017.
1516.	Jennifer McCoy, "Credibility of Venezuela's Electoral Process on the Line," August 3, 2017, Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, blog hosted by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), August 2017.
16Venezuela's CNE reported that almost 8.1 million people voted, but a company involved in setting up the voting system alleged that the tally was inflated by at least 1 million votes. Jennifer McCoy, "Credibility of Venezuela's Electoral Process on the Line," Washington Office on Latin America, August 3, 2017. 17.	Ortega has released a video of the former head of the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht's Venezuelan operations testifying that the company had paid President Maduro $35 million in bribes in 2013. Nicholas Casey, "Maduro is Accused in Bribery," New York Times, October 13, 2017; Ortega has provided evidence against other top officials to the U.S. government and evidence of government human rights abuses to the ICC.International Criminal Court. Reuters, "Venezuela Ex-Prosecutor Gives U.S. Evidence on Maduro Officials," Reuters, October 13, 2017.
17.	Jon Lee Anderson, "Nicolas Maduro's Accelerating Revolution," The New Yorker, December 11, 2017.
18.	Gideon Long, "Venezuela Elections Dogged by Fraud Claims," Financial Times, October 16, 2017.
19.	Michael Penfold, Food, Technology, and Authoritarianism in Venezuela's Elections, Woodrow Wilson Center, April 18, 2018.
20.	Ledezma, a former mayor of metropolitan Caracas, escaped house arrest and fled to Spain in November 2017.
21.	José Ignacio Hernández G., "Rigged Elections: Venezuela's Failed Presidential Election," Electoral Integrity Project, May 30, 2018.
22.	"Venezuela Election: Maduro Wins Second Term Amid Claims of Vote Rigging," BBC, May 21, 2018.
23.	"Venezuela's Maduro Wins Boycotted Elections Amid Charges Ofof Fraud," NPR, May 21, 2018. 23 Fraud," NPR, May 21, 2018.
24.	Michael D. Shear and Nicholas Casey, "Joshua Holt, an American Held in Venezuelan Jail for 2 Years, is Back in the U.S.," New York Times, May 26, 2018; Patricia Laya and Fabiola Zerpa, "Venezuela Starts Releasing Political Prisoners, Including Some Lawmakers," Bloomberg, June 1, 2018; "Venezuela Frees Lorent Saleh Amid Suicide Concerns," BBC, October 13, 2019.
25.	Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report: Venezuela, January 7, 2018.
26.	"Socialists win Municipal Elections in Venezuela Amid low Turnout," EFE, December 10, 2018.
27.	International Crisis Group, Friendly Fire: Venezuela's Opposition Turmoil, November 23, 2018.
28.	Andrew Rosati, "Venezuela Arrests Military Officers in Probe of Failed Assassination Bid," Bloomberg, August 14, 2018; Reporters Without Borders, "German Journalist Held in Venezuela Facing 28 Years in Prison on Spying Charges," December 11, 2018.
2924.	Human Rights Watch, "Venezuela: Suspected Plotters Tortured," January 9, 2019.
3025.	The government maintains that Albán committed suicide; U.N. officials are investigating his death as a murder. Associated Press, "Fernando Albán: UN to Investigate Death in Custody of Venezuelan Politician," AP, October 9, 2018.
3126.	Gideon Long, "Maduro to be Sworn in Amid Venezuela Meltdown," Financial Times, January 10Mery Mogollan and Patrick J. McDonnell, "In Venezuela, U.S.-Guaido Strategy Flops Again: Is This Working?" Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2019.
3227.	"Venezuela Supreme Court Judge Christian Zerpa Flees to US," Reuters, January 7,Foro Penal, Report on Repression in Venezuela, February 2019.
3328.	Ciara Nugent, "How a Little-Known Opposition Leader Could Turn Venezuela Back Toward Democracy," Time, January 15, 2019IFRC, "IFRC to Bring Humanitarian Aid into Venezuela," March 29, 2019. See https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/press-release/ifrc-bring-humanitarian-aid-venezuela.
34.	In the absence of an elected president, the Venezuelan Congress's president must become acting president of a transition government until elections can be called. Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 1999, as amended by Amendment No. 1 of 15 February 2009, Article 233, translation by the Ministry of Communication and Information of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 2010.
35.	Laura Millan Lombrana and Andrew Rosati, "Venezuela Opposition Leader Detained and Released by Intelligence Police," Bloomberg, January 13, 2019.
36.	Siobhán O'Grady, "As Maduro Clashes with Opposition, Washington Engages in 'Careful Little Dance,' with Venezuela" Washington Post, January 12, 2019; Mayela Armas and Corina Pons, "Venezuela Congress and U.S. Government Ratchet up Pressure on Maduro," Reuters, January 15, 2019; Jeff Mason, "'Hola, I'm Mike Pence': U.S. VP Delivers Message of Support to Venezuelans," Reuters, January 22, 2019.
37.	"Venezuela's National Assembly Moves to Overthrow Maduro," Latin News Daily, January 16, 2019.
38.	Fabiola Sanchez, "Venezuela Quells Soldiers' Revolt, Top Court Blasts Congress," AP, January 21, 2019.
3929.	Karen DeYoung and Mary Beth Sheridan, "Venezuelan Military Foils U.S. Hopes," Washington Post, April 14, 2019. The article states that there are more than 2,000 troops and family members from Venezuelan waiting in border area hotels.
30.	Gobierno de Colombia, "Colombia Determina Esquema de Atención para Ex-Militares y Ex-Policias Venezolanos que se Encuentran en el Territorio Nacional," May 15, 2019.
31.	Solsvik Terje and Angus Berwick, "Venezuela's Guaidó Vows Protests as Oslo Talks Produce No Deal," Reuters, May 29, 2019.
32.	International Crisis Group, Picking up the Pieces After Venezuela's Quashed Uprising, May 1, 2019.
33.	"Bolton Speaks About Venezuela," Washington Post, April 30, 2019.
34.	Terje and Berwick, "Venezuela's Guaidó Vows Protests."
35.	Douglas Farah and Caitlyn Yates, Maduro's Last Stand: Venezuela's Survival Through the Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise, IBI Consultants and the National Defense University, May 2019.
36.	Farah and Yates, Maduro's Last Stand.
37.	The White House, "Remarks by Vice President Pence at the Washington Conference on the Americas," May 7, 2019; Reuters, "Relief from U.S. Sanctions Will Not Come Easily for Some Venezuelans," May 30, 2019.
For background, see CRS Report R43239, Venezuela: Issues for Congress, 2013-2016, by Mark P. Sullivan.
4039.	Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOCHR), Human Rights Violations and Abuses in the Context of Protests in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela from 1 April to 31 July 2017, August 30, 2017, at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/VE/HCReportVenezuela_1April-31July2017_EN.pdf.
41.	. The Venezuelan human rights group Foro Penal and Human Rights Watch maintain that more than 5,300 Venezuelans were detained during the protests. They documented inhumane treatment of more than 300 detainees. Human Rights Watch, Foro Penal, Crackdown on Dissent: Brutality, Torture, and Political Persecution in Venezuela, November 2017, at https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/11/29/crackdown-dissent/brutality-torture-and-political-persecution-venezuela.
4240.	Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Situation in Venezuela, February 2018, at http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Venezuela2018-en.pdfUNOCHR, Venezuela: Continued Impunity amid Dismal Human Rights Situation, June 22, 2018.
4341.	U.S. Department of State, MarchPrograma Venezolana de Educación y Acción en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA), Informe Anual Enero-Diciembre 2017, June 2018.
4442.	Organization of American States (OAS), Report of the General Secretariat of the OAS and the Panel of Independent International Experts on the Possible Commission of Crimes Against Humanity in Venezuela, May 29, 2018, at http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-031/18. Hereinafter: OAS, May 2018.
45.	Programa Venezolana de Educación y Acción en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA), Informe Anual Enero-Diciembre 2017, June 2018, available at https://www.derechos.org.ve/informes-anuales.
43.	Foro Penal, Report on Repression in Venezuela. February 2019.
44.	U.S. Department of State, 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Venezuela, March 13, 2019.
45.
46.	Tamara Taraciuk Broner, "U.N. Human Rights Council Confronts Venezuela," Human Rights Watch, October 2, 2017; UNOCHR, "Venezuela: Continued Impunity Amid Dismal Human Rights Situation - UN report," June 22, 2018; UNOCHR, "Human Rights Council Adopts 10 Resolutions and one Presidential Statement," September 27, 2018.
47.	"Venezuela's Ex-prosecutor Urges ICC to Probe Maduro," AFP, November 16, 2017; Antonio Maria Delgado, "Venezuelan Officials Accused of Crimes Against Humanity in The Hague," Miami Herald, November 21, 2017; ICC, "Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mrs Fatou Bensouda, on opening Preliminary Examinations into the situations in the Philippines and in Venezuela; February 8, 2018; ICC, "Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mrs Fatou Bensouda, on the Referral by a Group of Six States Parties Regarding the Situation in Venezuela," September 27, 2018.
48.	This section was authored by Rebecca M.Nelson, Specialist in International Trade and Finance. For more information, see CRS Report R45072, Venezuela's Economic Crisis: Issues for Congress, by Rebecca M. Nelson.
49.	The Economist, "How Chávez and Maduro Have Impoverished Venezuela," Economist, April 6, 2017.
50.	Ibid. The Economist, "How Chávez and Maduro Have Impoverished Venezuela."
51.	John Paul Rathbone and Robin Wigglesworth, "Venezuela Debt: US, Russia, and China Play for High Stakes,"  Financial Times, November 22, 2017.
52.	IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2018. Percent change in GDP in constant dollars (adjusted for inflation)Anatoly Kurmanaev, "Venezuela's Collapse Is the Worst Outside of War in Decades, Economists Say," New York Times, May 17, 2019.
53.	Current U.S. dollars (not adjusted for inflation)IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2019.
54.	For example, see Alejandro Werner, "Outlook for the Americas: A Tougher Recovery," IMF Blog, July 23, 2018.
55.	IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2018. Percent change in GDP in constant dollars (adjusted for inflation).
56.	Brian Ellsworth, "Exclusive: Venezuela Creditors Demand Payment on Defaulted $1.5 Billion Bond," Reuters, December 17, 2018.
57.	IMF, World Economic Outlook, October 2018.
5857.	Interview of Ricardo Hausmann by Sebastian Pellejero, "Can Venezuela Resurrect Its Economy?," Council on Foreign Relations, July 26, 2017.
5958.	Rachelle Krygier, "After Years of Crisis, Venezuela's Maduro Might Finally Be Ready to Accept Some Help," Washington Post, December 12, 2018.
6059.	See CRS In Focus IF10825, Digital Currencies: Sanctions Evasion Risks, by Rebecca M. Nelson and Liana W. Rosen.
61.	; Eric Lam, "Here's What Maduro Has Said of Venezuela's Petro Cryptocurrency," Bloomberg, August 20, 2018.
62.	; Aaron Mak, "What Does itIt Mean for Venezuela to Peg Its New Currency to a Cryptocurrency?," Slate, August 22, 2018.
63.	; and Brian Ellsworth, "Special Report: In Venezuela, New Cryptocurrency isIs Nowhere to Be Found," Retuers, August 30, 2018.
6460.	"Nicolas Maduro Tries to Rescue Venezuela's Economy," Economist, August 23, 2018.
6561.	Henry Foy and Natassia Astrasheuskaya, "Will Russia Keep its $6bn Promise to Venezuela?," Financial Times, December 9, 2018Vivian Sequera, "Venezuela's Maduro Offers Few Fresh Ideas as Economy Circles Drain," Reuters, January 14, 2019.
6662.	Micah Maidenberg and Julie Wernau, "Investors Push Venezuela for Payment on $1.5 Billion Defaulted Bond," Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2018Anatoly Kurmanaev and Clifford Krauss, "U.S. Sanctions Are Aimed at Venezuela's Oil. Its Citizens May Suffer First," New York Times, February 8, 2019.
6763.	Phillip Brown, Specialist in Energy Policy, contributed to this section. For more on Venezuela's energy sector, see CRS In Focus IF10857, Venezuela's Petroleum Sector and U.S. Sanctions, by Phillip BrownReuters, "Venezuela Exported $779 Million in Gold to Turkey in 2018," July 19, 2018.
6864.	Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela Facts and Figures, available at https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/about_us/171.htm, accessed November 29, 2018International Crisis Group, Gold and Grief in Venezuela's Violence South, February 28, 2019.
6965.	BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
70.	OPEC, Monthly Oil Market Report, April 13, 2016. Note: oil production numbers from "secondary sources."
71.	OPEC, Monthly Oil Market Report, November 13, 2016. Note: oil production numbers from "secondary sources."
72.	Others have made similar predictions. See International Energy Agency, Oil 2018, March 2018; "Factbox: Venezuela's Near Collapse Takes Toll on Oil Industry," Platts, June 18, 2018.
73.	OPEC, Monthly Oil Market Report, December 2018. Note oil production numbers from "secondary sources."
74.	"New Venezuela Oil Boss to Give Military More PDVSA Posts," Reuters, November 27, 2017.
75.	"Workers Flee and Thieves Loot Venezuela's Reeling Oil Giant," New York Times, June 14, 2018.
76.	Igor Hernández and Francisco Monaldi, Weathering the Collapse: An Assessment of the Financial and Operational Situation of the Venezuelan Oil Industry, CID Working Paper No. 327, November 2016.
77.	Although a bond swap in late 2016 eased some of the company's short-term debt burden, the company remains heavily indebted, with total outstanding bonds estimated at $25 billion. Lee C. Buchheit and G. Mitu Gulati, How to Restructure Venezuelan Debt, July 2017.
78.	Oil shipments to Russia and China are for debt repayment. Francisco Monaldi, The Collapse of the Venezuelan Oil Industry and its Global Consequences, Atlantic Council, March 2018.
79.	Andrew J. Standley and Frank A. Verrastro, How Low Can Venezuelan Oil Production Go? Center for Strategic & International Studies, June 18, 2018.
80.	A. Ulmer, "Venezuela Congressional Probe says $11 Billion Missing at PDVSA," Reuters, October 19, 2018.
81.	U.S. Department of Justice, "Five Former Venezuelan Government Officials Charged in Money Laundering Scheme Involving Foreign Bribery," February 12, 2018; Jay Weaver and Antonio Maria Delgado, "Feds Freeze Millions in Assets Linked to Stolen Venezuelan oil Funds Laundered in South Florida," Miami Herald, August 22, 2018.
82.	"Special Report: Oil Output Goes AWOL in Venezuela as Soldiers run PDVSA," Reuters, December 26, 2018.
83.	Hernández and Monaldi, 2016.
84.	Corina Pons, Marianna Parraga, "Venezuela frees Chevron executives held since April," Reuters, June 6, 2018.
85.	Reuters, "Special Report," op. cit.
86.	Tom Hals, "Venezuela's Deals to Shield Citgo from Creditors now in Doubt," Reuters, December 11, 2018.
87.	For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Migration Crisis, by Rhoda Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke.
88.	Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Encuesta Sobre Condiciones de Vida:Venezuela 2017, February 2018, available at https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2018/02/21/encovi-2017/.
89.	Hannah Dreier and Joshua Goodman, "Venezuela Military Trafficking Food as Country Goes Hungry," AP, December 28, 2016.
90.	U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Panorama of Food and Nutritional Security in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2017, http://www.fao.org/americas/recursos/panorama/en/.
91.	Meridith Kohut and Isayen Herrera, "As Venezuela Collapses, Children are Dying," New York Times, December 17, 2017.
92.	"Venezuela: Approximately 50% of Operating Theaters in Venezuelan Public Hospitals Are Not Functional," Global Health Intelligence, March 27, 2017.
93.	PROVEA, Informe sobre la situación del Derecho a la Salud de la población venezolana en el marco de una Emergencia Humanitaria Compleja, September 13, 2018, https://www.derechos.org.ve/web/wp-content/uploads/Informe-Derecho-a-la-Salud-en-la-EHC-Venezuela-Codevida-Provea-septiembre-2018-1.pdf
94.	PAHO/WHO, "PAHO's Response to Maintaining an Effective Technical Cooperation Agenda in Venezuela and Neighboring Member States," CE162/INF/22. Rev. 1, June 20, 2018. Hereinafter: PAHO, June 2018.
95.	"Boletín Epidemiológico, Semana Epidemiológica No 52, 25 al 31 de Diciembre de 2016 Año de edición LX," Gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela; Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Salud, February 2017.
96.	Data are available at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=VE.
97.	There have been 1,716 suspected cases of diphtheria reported since the outbreak began in July 2016 and 2,285 confirmed cases of measles since July 2017. PAHO, June 2018.
98.	Stephanie Nolen, "In Venezuela, a Once-Leading AIDS Program Lies in Ruins," The Globe and Mail, June 21, 2017. According to Venezuelan health ministry statistics cited in the June 2018 PAHO report, 87% of HIV/AIDs patients registered with the national program are not receiving antiretroviral treatments.
99.	Abortion is illegal in Venezuela unless the life of the mother is at risk. Mariana Zuñiga and Anthony Faiola, "Even Sex Is in Crisis in Venezuela, Where Contraceptives Are Growing Scarce," Washington Post, November 28, 2017.
100.	"One Million Unvaccinated Venezuelan Kids Vulnerable in Measles Outbreak: Doctors," Reuters, September 29, 2017.
101.	Allocations from the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) are made to ensure a rapid response to sudden-onset emergencies or to rapidly deteriorating conditions in an existing emergency and to support humanitarian response activities within an underfunded emergency.
102.	U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), 2018 Allocations by Country: Venezuela, November 15, 2018. See https://cerf.un.org/what-we-do/allocation-by-country/2018.
103.	This draws from: UNHCR, "Number of Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela Reaches 3 Million," November 8, 2018.
104.	John Otis, "Trinidad Faces Humanitarian Crisis As More Venezuelans Come For Refuge," NPR, December 18, 2018.
105.	UNHCR and IOM, Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela: January-December 2019, 2018. Hereinafter: UNHCR and IOM, RMRP, December 2018.
106.	See, for example, 3.eoff Ramsey and Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, Responding to an Exodus: Venezuela's Migration and Refugee Crisis as Seen From the Colombian and Brazilian Borders, Washington Office on Latin America, July 2018, http://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Final-VZ-Migration-Report-Final.pdf.
107.	UNHCR and IOM, RMRP, December 2018
108.	UNHCR and IOM, RMRP, December 2018.
109.	Venezuela started provided oil and other energy-related products to 17 other Caribbean Basin nations with preferential financing terms in a program known as PetroCaribe in 2005; recipients of that oil have, until recently, been reluctant to criticize Venezuela's domestic affairs. Most Caribbean nations were members of PetroCaribe, with the exception of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, as were several Central American countries. As oil production in Venezuela declined, deliveries decreased by some 54% from 2015 to 2017. In 2018, Venezuela suspended shipments to eight countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
110.	For information on sanctions, see https://venezuelablog.org/venezuela-targeted-sanctions-database-switzerland-panama-update/.
111.	U.S. Department of State, "Western Hemisphere: An Unfair, Unfree Vote in Venezuela," May 21, 2018; European Council of the EU, "Declaration by the High Representative on Behalf of the EU on the Presidential and Regional Elections in Venezuela," May 22, 2018; Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, "G7 Leaders' Statement on Venezuela," May 23, 2018. Organization of American States, "Resolution on the Situation in Venezuela," S-032-18, June 5, 2018. Benjamin N. Gedan and Fernando Cutz, "Maduro's Inauguration Sets the State to Further Isolate Venezuela's Regime," Washington Post, January 7, 2019.
112.	"Peru Recalls Last Diplomat From Venezuela to Protest 'Illegitimate' new Term," Reuters, January 10, 2019; "Paraguay Cuts Diplomatic Ties With Venezuela After Maduro Sworn In," New York Times, January 10, 2019.
113.	For information, see http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/countries-pays/venezuela.aspx?lang=eng.
114.	For information, see https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions/venezuela/.
115.	Mercosur includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Mac Margolis, "Mercosur Turns Its Back on a Diminished Venezuela," Bloomberg View, December 9, 2016.
116.	"South America Creating Regional Bloc to Counter Venezuela –Colombia," Reuters, January 14, 2019.
117.	See, for example, press releases from U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State, "Travel to Brazil and Colombia: December 31, 2018-January 2, 2019," available at https://www.state.gov/secretary/travel/2019/t1/index.htm.
118.	"Guyana to Ask ICJ to Rule in its Favor in Venezuela Border Case," Jamaica Observer, June 19, 2018.
119.	The accord calls for an arms embargo of Venezuela, a rejection of Venezuelan candidates at international organizations, and the support of any OAS efforts to help resolve the situation. The signatory countries pledge to keep discussing Venezuela at the Foreign Minister level and supporting any credible efforts at dialogue between the government and the opposition. See https://www.mrecic.gov.ar/en/lima-declaration.
120.	Geoff Ramsey, "U.S. and Latin American Allies Discuss Venezuela in and Around UN General Assembly," Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, WOLA, September 23, 2017; Robert Valencia, "Tillerson in Latin America: Should the U.S. Impose an Oil Embargo on Venezuela?" Newsweek, February 8, 2018.
121.	Government of Canada, "Statement of the Fifth Meeting of the Lima Group on the Situation in Venezuela," February 13, 2018.
122.	Government of Canada, "Statement by Lima Group on Electoral Process in Venezuela," May 21, 2018.
123.	OAS, "Resolution on the Situation in Venezuela," June 5, 2018.
124.	The statement is available here: https://international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/latin_america-amerique_latine/2019-01-04-lima_group-groupe_lima.aspx?lang=eng.
125.	"Mexico Defends Hands-off Stance on Venezuela," AP, January 7, 2019.
126.	Ted Piccone and Harold Trinkunas, "The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance: The Beginning of the End?" Latin America Initiative Policy Brief, Brookings, June 2014.
127.	Venezuela Investigative Unit, "The Eight Criminal Armies Supporting Venezuela's Maduro Administration," InSight Crime, January 22, 2018.
128.	"Algeria Sends More Oil to Cuba as Venezuelan Supplies Fall," Reuters, January 10, 2018; Marianna Parraga and Jeanne Liendo, "Exclusive: As Venezuelans Suffer, Maduro Buys Foreign Oil to Subsidize Cuba," May 15, 2018.
129.	R. Evan Ellis, Testimony to the U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Influence of Extra-Hemispheric Actors on the Crisis in Venezuela," 115th Cong., 1st sess., September 13, 2017. Hereinafter, Ellis, September 2017.
130.	Kevin P. Gallagher and Margaret Myers, "China-Latin America Finance Database," Washington, DC. Inter-American Dialogue, 2016, at http://www.thedialogue.org/map_list/.
131.	Ellis, September 2017.
132.	Marianna Parraga and Brian Ellsworth, "Venezuela Falls Behind on Oil-for-Loan Deals with China, Russia," Reuters, February 10, 2017; David Dollar, Chinese Investment in Latin America, Brookings Institution, January 2017.
133.	Christopher Balding, "Venezuela's Road to Disaster Is Littered with Chinese Cash," Foreign Policy, June 6, 2017.
134.	"China Says Sanctions Won't Help as Trump Targets Venezuela," Reuters News, August 28, 2017.
135.	"Russia Calls U.S. Threat Against Venezuela Unacceptable," Agence France Presse, August 16, 2017; "Russia Says Venezuelan Crisis Must Be Resolved Peacefully 'Without Outside Pressure,'" Radio Free Europe Documents and Publications, August 16, 2017.
136.	Federal Customs Service of Russia, as presented by Global Trade Atlas.
137.	Girish Gupta, "Exclusive: Venezuela Holds 5,000 Russian Surface-to-air MANPADS Missiles," Reuters, May 22, 2017.
138.	Rachel Ansley, "Debt Default Pushes Venezuela Further into Russian Orbit," Atlantic Council, November 22, 2017.
139.	"Special Report: Vladimir's Venezuela – Leveraging Loans to Caracas, Moscow Snaps Up Oil Assets," Reuters, August 11, 2017; Michael Place, "Russia's Gazprom Eyeing Venezuela Gas Projects," BN Americas, October 3, 2017.
140.	"The International Community Reacts to Nicolás Maduro's win in Venezuelan 'Elections,'" Global Americans, May 30, 2018;
141.	Mery Mogollan and Daniel Rodriguez, "Maduro inks deal with Russia to boost Venezuela oil output 1 million b/d," S&P Global Platts, December 6, 2018.
142.	Tom Phillips, "Venezuela Welcomes Russian Bombers in Show of Support for Maduro," The Guardian, December 10, 2018.
143.	See CRS In Focus IF10715, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions, by Mark P. Sullivan.
144.	U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, "An Unfair, Unfree Vote in Venezuela," May 21, 2018.
145.	U.S. Department of State, Press Statement, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, "Actions Against Venezuela's Corrupt Regime," January 10, 2019.
146.	The White House, "Statement from National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton on Venezuela," January 11, 2019.
147.	The White House, "Readout of Vice President Mike Pence's Call with Juan Guaidó, the President of the National Assembly of Venezuela," January 15, 2019.
148.	Kejal Vyas, "U.S. Considers Harshest Venezuela Sanctions Yet, on Oil," Dow Jones Institutional News, January 14, 2019.
149.	National Endowment for Democracy, "Venezuela 2017," at https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/venezuela-2017/.
150.	This is drawn from: CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Migration Crisis, by Rhoda Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke.
151.	CRS In Focus IF10715, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions, by Mark P. Sullivan. For more information, see U.S. Department of the Treasury, Venezuela-Related Sanctions, available at https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/venezuela.aspx.
152.	It also authorized targeted sanctions against any person determined to be a current or former Venezuelan government official or a current or former leader of any entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in any activity described above.
153.	U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Targets Venezuela Currency Exchange Network Scheme Generating Billions of Dollars for Corrupt Regime Insiders," January 8, 2019.
154.	See, for example, White House, Office of the Press Secretary, "Presidential Determination on Foreign Governments' Efforts Regarding Trafficking in Persons," September 30, 2018.
155.	Presidential Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions with Respect to the Situation in Venezuela, August 25, 2017, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/08/25/presidential-executive-order-imposing-sanctions-respect-situation.
156.	Statement by the Press Secretary on New Financial Sanctions on Venezuela, August 25, 2017, at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/08/25/statement-press-secretary-new-financial-sanctions-venezuela.
157.	Congress has passed legislation to prohibit investments and transaction in Iran sovereign debt (22 U.S.C. 2723), and the Countering Russia Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017 (§242 of P.L. 115-44) calls for a report studying the effects of sanctioning Russian sovereign debt and related derivative products.
158.	The licenses allow (1) a 30-day window to wind down contracts affected by the sanctions; (2) U.S. investors to continue trading their existing holdings of Venezuelan and PdVSA bonds on secondary markets; (3) transactions involving new debt issued by CITGO; and (4) financing for specific humanitarian goods, including agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices.
159.	Ben Bartenstein and Christine Jenkins, "Venezuelan Bonds Get Harder to Trade Thanks to Sanctions," Bloomberg, August 31, 2017; Lucia Kassai and Sheela Tobben, "Venezuelan Oil Cargoes to U.S. Ports Plunge as Sanctions Bite," Bloomberg, October 24, 2017.
160.	Nicholas Casey and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "As Trump Adds Sanctions on Venezuela, Its Neighbors Reject Election Result," New York Times, May 21, 2018.
161.	Laura Jaitman, ed., The Costs of Crime and Violence in Latin America: New Evidence and Insights from Latin America and the Caribbean, Inter-American Development Bank, 2017.
162.	"Venezuela Murder Rate Dips, Partly due to Migration: Monitoring Group," Reuters, December 27, 2018.
163.	Christopher Woody, "Venezuela Admits Homicides Soared to 60 a day in 2016, Making it one of the Most Violent Countries in the World," Business Insider, April 2017.
164.	David Smilde, "Crime and Revolution in Venezuela," NACLA Report on the Americas, 2017, vol. 49, no. 3; Amnesty International, September 2018.
165.	Amnesty International, This is noFor example, see Colby Smith, "Bondholders Brace for Venezuelan Regime Change," Financial Times, February1, 2019; Sam Fleming and James Politi, "US Considers Emergency Economic Aid for Venezuela," Financial Times, March 3, 2019.
66.	For more information, see CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Migration Crisis, by Rhoda Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke.
67.	Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Encuesta Sobre Condiciones de Vida:Venezuela 2017, February 2018.
68.	U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock, "Briefing to the Security Council on the Humanitarian Situation in Venezuela," April 10, 2019.
69.	U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "Venezuela—UN Humanitarian Scale-Up Situation Report, January-April 2019," May 2019.
70.	U.N. Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, "Latin America and the Caribbean: Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in the Region," April 2019; U.N. Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, "Latin America and the Caribbean: Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in the Region," March 2019. See also UNHCR, "Americas Monthly Report," March 2019. According to the Brazilian government, the country has "received" some 200,000 Venezuelans, but not all of those individuals have remained in Brazil. UNHCR, "Americas Monthly Report," March 2019.
71.	USAID, Venezuela Regional Crisis, FY2019, April 10, 2019.
72.	The spread of previously eradicated diseases, such as measles, is a major regional concern.
73.	Human Rights Watch and John Hopkins School of Public Health, Venezuela's Humanitarian Emergency: Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crises, April 2019.
74.	The Venezuelan government has made it increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to obtain a valid passport and therefore legal status outside the country.
75.	For example, in November 2018, the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund allocated $9.2 million for Venezuela through U.N. entities. The World Health Organization has helped provide millions of vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella.
76.	UNOCHA, "Venezuela—UN Humanitarian Scale-Up Situation Report, January-April 2019," May 2019.
77.	IFRC, "IFRC to Bring Humanitarian Aid into Venezuela," March 29, 2019, https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/press-release/ifrc-bring-humanitarian-aid-venezuela.
78.	ICRC, "Venezuela: ICRC to Expand Humanitarian Effort," April 11, 2019. As part of the Red Cross Movement, and in keeping with their mandates, both IFRC and ICRC provide humanitarian assistance in an independent, neutral, impartial, and unhindered manner.
79.	The plan includes U.N. entities, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based organizations, and civil society and is in cooperation with the Red Cross Movement. See Coordination Platform for Response for Venezuelans, Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, January-December 2019, published December 14, 2018. It was put together by 95 organizations covering 16 countries. Organizations have also launched separate appeals.
80.	See Financial Tracking Service at https://fts.unocha.org/appeals/726/summary.
81.	See also CRS In Focus IF11216, Venezuela: International Efforts to Resolve the Political Crisis, by Clare Ribando Seelke.
82.	The OAS requires 18 votes to pass a resolution of the Permanent Council. In June 2018, 19 of 34 member states passed a resolution stating that the May 2018 presidential election in Venezuela lacked legitimacy and authorizing countries to take measures, including sanctions, necessary to hasten a return to democracy. In January 2019, the same 19 states approved a resolution that refused to recognize the legitimacy of Maduro's second term; called for new presidential elections; and urged all member states to adopt diplomatic, political, economic, and financial measures to facilitate the prompt restoration of the democratic order in Venezuela. Those countries include Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Guatemala, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Lucia, and the United States. The four countries that voted against the January 2019 resolution were Bolivia, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. The 11 countries that abstained included Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Ecuador, Grenada, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.
83.	Callum Burroughs, "The Bank of England Has Refused to Give Back $1.56 Billion in Venezuelan Gold after Countries Around the World Say the Regime Is Illegitimate," Business Insider, February 6, 2019.
84.	European Council, "Declaration by the High Representative on Behalf of the EU on the Latest Events in Venezuela," Government of Canada, Lima Group Declaration, February 25, 2019.
85.	Testimony of Cynthia J. Arnson before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues, hearing on "U.S.-Venezuela Relations and Path to a Democratic Transition," March 7, 2019.
86.	Government of Canada, "Lima Group Declaration," August 8, 2017. These statements are available in English at https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/response_conflict-reponse_conflits/crisis-crises/venezuela.aspx?lang=eng.
87.	Government of Canada, "Lima Group Declaration," January 4, 2019.
88.	Government of Canada, "Lima Group Declaration," May 3, 2019.
89.	EU, "International Contact Group—Meeting 7 February," February 7, 2019.
90.	David Smilde and Geoff Ramsey, The Fraught Path Forward: Venezuela and the International Contact Group, Washington Office on Latin America, March 5, 2019.
91.	EU, "Venezuela: Statement from the Ministerial Meeting of the International Contact Group," May 7, 2019.
92.	EU, "Statement by the International Contact Group on the Norwegian Facilitated Negotiation Process," May 26, 2019.
93.	Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China," Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on May 8, 2019," May 8, 2019.
94.	At that time, the report said that the number of Cuban military and intelligence advisors in Venezuela may have ranged from hundreds to thousands, coordinated by Cuba's military attaché in Venezuela. Ted Piccone and Harold Trinkunas, "The Cuba-Venezuela Alliance: The Beginning of the End?," Brookings Institution, June 2014.
95.	Venezuela Investigative Unit, "The Eight Criminal Armies Supporting Venezuela's Maduro Administration," Insight Crime, January 22, 2018; The White House, "President Donald J. Trump Stands for Democracy in Venezuela," May 1, 2019.
96.	"Venezuela Continues Shipping Oil to Cuba," Oilprice.com, April 12, 2019.
97.	U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Increases Pressure on Cuba to End Support to Maduro by Imposing Further Oil Sector Sanctions," April 12, 2019. For related information, see CRS Insight IN11120, Cuba: Trump Administration Expands Sanctions, by Mark P. Sullivan.
98.	See Vladimir Rouvinski, Russian-Venezuelan Relations at a Crossroads, Woodrow Wilson Center, February 5, 2019.
99.	Anthony Faiola and Karen DeYoung, "In Venezuela, Russia Pockets Key Energy Assets in Exchange for Cash Bailouts," Washington Post, December 24, 2018.
100.	Girish Gupta, "Exclusive: Venezuela Holds 5,000 Russian Surface-to-air MANPADS Missiles," Reuters, May 22, 2017.
101.	Christian Lowe and Rinat Sagdiev, "How Russia Sank Billions of Dollars into Venezuelan Quicksand," Reuters, March 14, 2019.
102.	Rachel Ansley, "Debt Default Pushes Venezuela Further into Russian Orbit," Atlantic Council, November 22, 2017.
103.	Frederick Kempe, "Russia's Venezuela Challenge," Atlantic Council, April 7, 2019; Emily Talkin, "Why Is Russia Clashing with the United States over Venezuela?" Washington Post, May 1, 2019.
104.	Mery Mogollan and Daniel Rodriguez, "Maduro inks deal with Russia to boost Venezuela oil output 1 million b/d," S&P Global Platts, December 6, 2018.
105.	Tom Phillips, "Venezuela Welcomes Russian Bombers in Show of Support for Maduro," The Guardian, December 10, 2018.
106.	The White House, "Statement by National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton on Venezuela," March 29, 2019.
107.	Stephen Kaplan and Michael Penfold, "China-Venezuela Economic Relations: Hedging Venezuelan Bets with Chinese Characteristics," Woodrow Wilson Center, February 20, 2019; Kejal Vyus, "China Talks with Venezuela Opposition to Protect Investments," Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2019.
108.
109.	R. Evan Ellis, Testimony to the U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, The Influence of Extra-Hemispheric Actors on the Crisis in Venezuela, 115th Cong., 1st sess., September 13, 2017.
110.	Marianna Parraga and Brian Ellsworth, "Venezuela Falls Behind on Oil-for-Loan Deals with China, Russia," Reuters, February 10, 2017; David Dollar, Chinese Investment in Latin America, Brookings Institution, January 2017.
111.	Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's regular press conference on May 8, 2019," May 8, 2019.
112.	Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Announcement About Venezuela," May 29, 2019.
113.	Sabrina Martín, "They Met Face to Face: Behind the Scenes at the Venezuelan Dialogues in Norway," PanAmerican Post, May 29, 2019.
114.	Terje and Berwick, "Venezuela's Guaidó Vows Protests."
115.	Martín, "They Met Face to Face."
116.	The White House, "Remarks by President Trump to the Venezuelan American Community," February 18, 2019; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, interview with Maria Bartiromo, Mornings with Maria, May 1, 2019.
117.	U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearing on H.R. 1004, Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act, 116th Cong., 1st sess., March 13, 2019.
118.	This draws from: CRS In Focus IF10715, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions, by Mark P. Sullivan.
119.	For example, see E.O. 13808, "Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to the Situation in Venezuela," 82 Federal Register 41155-41156, August 24, 2017; E.O. 13850, "Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela," 83 Federal Register 55243-55245, November 1, 2018.
120.	E.O. 13692, "Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela," 80 Federal Register 12747-12751, March 8, 2015.
121.	E.O. 13808, "Imposing Additional Sanctions with Respect to the Situation in Venezuela," 82 Federal Register 41155-41156, August 24, 2017.
122.	E.O. 13827, "Taking Additional Steps to Address the Situation in Venezuela," 83 Federal Register 12469-12470, March 19, 2018.
123.	E.O. 13835, "Prohibiting Certain Additional Transactions with Respect to Venezuela," 83 Federal Register 24001-24002, May 21, 2018; Nicholas Casey and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "As Trump Adds Sanctions on Venezuela, Its Neighbors Reject Election Result," New York Times, May 21, 2018.
124.	E.O. 13850, "Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela," 83 Federal Register 55243-55245, November 1, 2018.
125.	Department of the Treasury determinations issued pursuant to Section 1(a)(1) of E.O. 13850 of January 28, 2019 (relating to oil), March 22, 2019 (relating to the financial sector), and May 9, 2019 (relating to the defense and security sector).
126.	Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton, "Exclusive: Trump Eyeing Stepped-Up Venezuela Sanctions for Foreign Companies—Bolton," Reuters, March 29, 2019.
127.	Dany Bahar, "Chavismo Is the Worst of All Sanctions: The Evidence Behind the Humanitarian Catastrophe in Venezuela," Brookings Institution, May 22, 2019.
128.	Patricia Laya, "Venezuela Sells $570 Million From Gold Reserve Despite Sanctions," Bloomberg, May 17, 2019.
129.	Kurmanaev and Krauss, "U.S. Sanctions Are Aimed at Venezuela's Oil;" Jim Wyss, "As U.S. Sanctions Against Venezuela Mount, What's the Human Toll?," Miami Herald, March 12, 2019.
130.	Reuters, "Relief from U.S. Sanctions Will Not Come Easily for Some Venezuelans," May 30, 2019.
131.	Samantha Sultoon, "Spotlight: Next Steps with Venezuela," Atlantic Council, April 25, 2019.
132.	This section was authored by Philip Brown, Specialist in Energy Policy.
133.	Risa Grais-Targow et al., "Venezuela/Oil," Eurasia Group, November 21, 2017.
134.	Grais-Targow et al., "Venezuela/Oil."
135.	General license 12 provides this wind-down period for importing petroleum from Venezuela. A comprehensive list of OFAC general licenses is available at https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/venezuela.aspx.
136.	Ship tracking information from Bloomberg L.P. (subscription required) indicates that Venezuela's crude exports to India and China increased 49% and 34%, respectively, between January 2019 and February 2019.
137.	Energy Information Administration (EIA), "Venezuelan Crude Oil Production Falls to Lowest Level Since January 2003," Today in Energy, May 20, 2019.
138.	EIA, "Venezuelan Crude Oil Production."
139.	EIA, "Venezuelan Crude Oil Production."
140.	The price differential between Louisiana Light Sweet (LLS) and Mars—a U.S.-produced heavy crude oil—ranged from approximately $2.50 to $6.00 per barrel between 2016 and 2018. Mars was less than LLS, which is to be expected given the better quality characteristics of LLS. In March 2019, following the January 2019 sanctions, the price differential turned negative for one day by $0.90 per barrel. Mars, a lower quality crude oil, was more expensive than LLS. The price differential has since recovered to approximately $2.50 per barrel, the lower end of the 2016-2018 range.
141.	Other arbitration awards have been made to companies such as Conoco for their expropriation in 2007 and Canada's Rusoro Mining, whose gold projects were seized by the government of Venezuela in 2011. However, the Crystallex award and judgment allows the company to seize and liquidate Citgo shares as a means of collecting the award.
142.	Bloomberg L.P. (subscription required), Bond description for PdVSA 8 ½ 10/27/20 bonds, accessed May 21, 2019.
143.	PdVSA bond prospectus, October 2016.
144.	Reuters, "Investors Await Payment Decision as PDVSA 2020 Coupon Looms," April 24, 2019.
145.	Reuters, "Investors Await Payment Decision."
146.	Reuters, "Venezuela's PDVSA Uses 49.9 Percent Citgo Stake as Loan Collateral," December 23, 2016.
147.	Members of the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State in June 2017 expressing concerns about national security implications of the potential for Russia to control a large portion of Citgo. A copy of the letter is available at https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/ ... /061917%20Rosneft%20Citgo%20Letter1.pdf.
148.	Oil Daily, "Judge Paves Way for Canadian Firm to Seize Citgo Assets," August 13, 2018.
149.	This is drawn from CRS In Focus IF11029, The Venezuela Regional Migration Crisis, by Rhoda Margesson and Clare Ribando Seelke.
150.	U.S. Department of State, "United States Provides Additional Humanitarian Aid to Venezuelans Who Have Fled the Country," April 10, 2019. See also USAID, Venezuela Regional Crisis.
151.	Ben Werner, "USNS Comfort Heading to Colombia to Treat Venezuelan Refugees," USNI News, May 7, 2019.
152.	Associated Press, "US Emergency Aid for Venezuela to Be Distributed in Colombia," May 30, 2019.
153.	National Endowment for Democracy, "Venezuela 2018," https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/venezuela-2018/.
154.	Laura Jaitman, ed., The Costs of Crime and Violence in Latin America: New Evidence and Insights from Latin America and the Caribbean, Inter-American Development Bank, 2017.
155.	Reuters, "Venezuela Murder Rate Dips, Partly due to Migration: Monitoring Group," December 27, 2018.
156.	Christopher Woody, "Venezuela Admits Homicides Soared to 60 a day in 2016, Making it one of the Most Violent Countries in the World," Business Insider, April 2017.
157.	David Smilde, "Crime and Revolution in Venezuela," NACLA Report on the Americas, 2017, vol. 49, no. 3; Amnesty International, September 2018.
158.
166159.	Insight Crime, , Venezuela: A Mafia State?, May 2018 May 2018, available at https://es.insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Venezuela-a-Mafia-State-InSight-Crime-2018.pdf.
167160.	Venezuela Investigative Unit, "Widespread Corruption in Venezuela Backfires on President Maduro," InSight Crime, October 16, 2016International Crisis Group, Gold and Grief in Venezuela's Violent South.
168161.	The White House, "Presidential Determination—Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2018," September 11, 2018.
169162.	U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2018 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR)2019 INCSR, vol. 1, p. 282271.
170163.	Insight Crime, Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: The 'Cartel of the Suns,' May 17, 2018.
171164.	Insight Crime, Venezuela: A Mafia State? May 2018.
172165.	U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Venezuela: Options for U.S. Policy, 115th Cong., 1st sess., March 2, 2017.
173.	U.S. Department of Justice, United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, "Former Top Leaders of Venezuela's Anti-Narcotics Agency Indicted for Trafficking Drugs to the United States," August 1, 2016.
174166.	Laura Natalia Ávila, "Game Changers 2016: Venezuela's Cartel of the Suns Revealed," InSightInsight Crime, January 3, 2017.
175.	See CRS In Focus IF10715, Venezuela: Overview of U.S. Sanctions, by Mark P. Sullivan.
176.	U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Treasury Sanctions Prominent Venezuela Drug Trafficker Tareck el Aissami and His Primary Frontman Samark Lopez Bello," February 13, 2017167. U.S. Department of State, 2019 INCSR, pp. 193-194.
177168.	U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 2018 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), vol. II: Money Laundering and Financial Crimes, 2018, pp. 211-2122019 INCSR, pp. 193-194.
178.	Ibid.
179169.	Brendan Pierson, "Florida Men Sentenced to Prison for Laundering Funds From Venezuela," Reuters, June 19, 2018.
180170.	U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, "Advisory on Widespread Public Corruption in Venezuela," September 20, 2017.
181171.	Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Organized Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America, April 2016. Hereinafter: The Global Initiative, April 2016.
182172.	Bram Ebus, "Militarization and Mining a Dangerous Mix in Venezuelan Amazon, " Mongabay, December 7, 2017; Maria Isabel Sanchez, "Inside the Deadly World of Venezuela's Illegal Mines," AFP, March 19, 2017; Stephanie Nebehay, "Malarian on Rise in Crisis-Hit Venezuela, WHO Says," Reuters, April 24, 2018.
183173.	The Global Initiative, April 2016 Against Transnational Organized Crime, Organized Crime and Illegally Mined Gold in Latin America; International Crisis Group, Gold and Grief in Venezuela's Violent South.
184174.	Jim Wyss, "In Chaotic Venezuela, Guerrillas from Colombia Find new Territory to Grow," Miami Herald, June 4, 2018. A May 2018 report by Insight Crime identified more than 120 high-level Venezuelan officials who have engaged in criminal activity. Insight Crime, Venezuela: A Mafia State?
185175.	Fundación Ideas para la Paz, "Inseguridad y Violencia en las Fronteras, los Desafíos del Nuevo Gobierno," November 7, 2018; Venezuela Investigativa Unit, "FARC Dissidents and the ELN Turn Venezuela Into Criminal Enclave," InSight Crime, December 10, 2018.
186176.	Ronna Rísquez and Victoria Dittmar, " ELN and EPL Conflict Intensifies at Colombia-Venezuela Border," InSightInsight Crime, August 2, 2018.
187177.	"Rastrojos Demonstrate Power with Attack on Venezuela Military Base," Insight Crime, November 5, 2018.
188178.	"Mueren Tres GNB en Enfrentamientos con Grupos Irregulares Colombianos en Amazonas," Crónica Uno, November 4, 2018.
189179.	Reuters, "Colombia Protests New Border Crossing by Venezuelan Troops," Reuters, November 7, 2018.
190November 7, 2018.
180.	U.S. Department of State. Public Notice 10781, "Determination and Certification of Countries Not Cooperating Fully with United States Antiterrorism Efforts," 84 Federal Register 24856, May 29, 2019.
U.S. Department of State, "Western Hemisphere Overview," in Country Reports on Terrorism 2017, September 2018.
191182.	The report covering 2016 stated that individuals linked to the FARC, the ELN, and Basque Fatherland and Liberty (a Basque terrorist organization), as well as Hezbollah supporters and sympathizers, were present in Venezuela. U.S. Department of State, "Western Hemisphere Overview," in Country Reports on Terrorism 2016, June 2017.
192183.	CRS Report R43835, State Sponsors of Acts of International Terrorism—Legislative Parameters: In Brief, by Dianne E. Rennack.
193184.	Amanda Erickson, "Venezuela isIs a Tragedy, notNot a Terrorist Threat," Washington Post, November 21, 2018.
194185.	Moises Rendón, "What Happens Next in Venezuela?," CSIS, May 10, 2019.	186.	Philip Brown, Specialist in Energy Policy, contributed to this section.
195.	Marianna Parraga, "Venezuelan Crude Sales to U.S. Drop to Lowest in Almost 30 years," Reuters, January 7, 2019.
196.	Trade statistics are from Global Trade Atlas, which uses Department of Commerce statistics.
197.	Venezuelan heavy crudes compete directly with Canadian oil sands heavy crudes to supply certain refiners in the United States (many in the Gulf Coast region) that have been optimally configured to process heavy crude oils.
198.	Risa Grais-Targow, Greg Priddy, and Agata Ciesielska, "Venezuela/Oil," Eurasia Group, November 21, 2017.
199.	Ibid.
200.	For example, see Jeff Duncan and James Conway, "Venezuela-Russia Deal Threatens U.S. Energy Security," The Hill, July 11, 2017.
201.	U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Domestic and International Policy, 115th Cong., May 18, 2017. For more on CFIUS, see CRS In Focus IF10177, The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, by James K. Jackson.
202.	Ian Talley, "U.S. to Block Potential Russian Move into American Energy," Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2017.
203.	Alexandra Ulmer and Marianna Parraga, "Russia, Venezuela Discuss Citgo Collateral Deal to Avoid U.S. Sanctions," Reuters, July 20, 2017; Alexandra Ulmer, "U.S. Investors Seek to Acquire Russia's Rosneft Lien in Citgo," Reuters, February 26, 2018.
204.	Alexandra Ulmer and Marianna Parraga, "Russia, Venezuela Discuss Citgo Collateral Deal to Avoid U.S. Sanctions," Reuters, July 20, 2017.
205.	OAS, "Secretary General Invoked Democratic Charter and Convened Permanent Council on Venezuela," May 31, 2016.
206.	OAS, Report of the Secretary General to the Permanent Council on the Situation in Venezuela, May 30, 2016, at http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/OSG-243.en.pdf.
207.	OAS, "Secretary General Presents Updated Report on Venezuela to the Permanent Council," press release (contains link to the full report), March 14, 2017, at http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-014/17.
208.	Michael Shifter, "Venezuela's Bad Neighbor Policy: Why It Quit the OAS," Foreign Affairs, May 5, 2017.
209.	Eurasia Group, "Venezuela- Preemptive Breakup with the OAS Will Not Diminish International Pressure," April 27, 2017.
210.	See, for example, Testimony of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro before the U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues, The Collapse of the Rule of Law in Venezuela: What the United States and the International Community Can Do to Restore Democracy, 115th Cong., 1st sess., July 19, 2017.
211.	OAS, Report of the Secretary General to the Permanent Council on the Situation in Venezuela, July 19, 2017, at http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/TERCER-INFORME-VENEZUELA-ENGLISH-Final-signed.pdf; and OAS, "Denunciation of a Dictatorial Regime's Consolidation in Venezuela: Presented by Secretary General Luis Almagro to the Permanent Council," September 25, 2017, at http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/OSG-445-CUARTO-INFORME-venezuela-English.pdf.
212.	OAS, May 2018.
213.	D. Smilde et al., "Is the OAS Playing a Constructive Role on Venezuela? What Should It Be Doing Differently?—Dialogue," Portside, June 1, 2017.
214.	OAS, "Resolution on the Situation in Venezuela," June 5, 2018.
215.	Brazil made a similar statement. Siobhán O'Grady, "As Maduro Clashes with Opposition, Washington Engages in 'Careful Little Dance,' with Venezuela" Washington Post, January 12, 2019.
216.	OAS, "Secretary General Invoked Democratic Charter and Convened Permanent Council on Venezuela," May 31, 2016.
217.	OAS, Report of the Secretary General to the Permanent Council on the Situation in Venezuela, May 30, 2016, at http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/OSG-243.en.pdf.
218.	Those countries included Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. OAS, "Statement by Ministers and Heads of Delegation on the Situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," June 15, 2016; U.S. Department of State, "Joint Statement on Recent Developments in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," August 11, 2016.
219.	OAS, "Declaration of the Permanent Council Supporting the National Dialogue in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," November 16, 2016.
220.	OAS, "Secretary General Presents Updated Report on Venezuela to the Permanent Council," press release (contains link to the full report), March 14, 2017, at http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-014/17.
221.	OAS, "OAS Permanent Council Adopts Resolution on Recent Events in Venezuela," press release, E-022/17, April 3, 2017.
222.	OAS, "OAS Permanent Council Agrees to Convene a Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to Consider the Situation in Venezuela," press release, E-035/17, April 26, 2017.
223.	Permanent Missions of Peru, Canada, United States, Mexico, and Panama to the OAS, Draft Declaration on the Situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be considered at the OAS, Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, May 31, 2017.
224.	Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Draft Declaration on the Situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be considered at the OAS, Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, May 31, 2017.
225.	Andrés Cañizález, "We Only Need Three Votes: Venezuela and the OAS," Latin American Goes Global, June 27, 2017. Six countries voted against the U.S.-backed resolution: Venezuela (absent), Bolivia, Dominica, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Eight others abstained: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
226.	Countries voting in favor of the resolution were: Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, Uruguay, and the United States. The five countries that voted against the resolution were: Bolivia, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. The eight countries that abstained were: Belize, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago. Representatives from Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada were not present.
227.	OAS, Report of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States and the Panel of Independent International Experts on the Possible Commission of Crimes Against Humanity in Venezuela, May 29, 2018, http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/Informe-Panel-Independiente-Venezuela-EN.pdf
228.	OAS, "Resolution on the Situation in Venezuela," June 5, 2018. Countries who voted in favor of the resolution were: Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Jamaica, Guatemala, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Lucia, and the United States. The four countries that voted against the resolution were: Bolivia, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. The 11 countries that abstained included Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Ecuador, Grenada, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.
229.	OAS, "OAS Analyzed Migration Crisis in Venezuela and Secretary General Announced Creation of Working Group," photo news, FNE-94910, September 8, 2018.