This is Planet Money from NPR.
Hi,
it's Kenny Malone and over the weekend the United States military struck Caracas and brought Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to the United States for trial.
American President Donald Trump is saying the US will quote run Venezuela and when he announced that on Saturday he linked his reasons for the strike to economics,
to increasing oil production, to conditions in Venezuela,
to the impact of socialist policies in that country.
Now, we at Planet Money have been covering Venezuela going back 10 years now,
talking to people on the ground,
hearing what it's like, and so today's episode is about the recent economic history of Venezuela.
The first part you're going to hear was reported in 2016 at a particularly low point for the country.
The second part was reported in 2024 after a period of economic stability in Venezuela,
after an unexpected cause of economic improvement, the US dollar.
So we begin with Robert Smith and Noel King in 2016.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money.
I'm Robert Smith.
And I'm Noel King.
Venezuela used to be a relatively rich country.
It had money and prestige, and most importantly, it had oil.
Venezuelans used to brag that they had the largest reserves of oil in the world.
Today on the show,