2026-01-08
35 分钟The Economist.
As dawn begins on the new world in Venezuela,
her mounting oil riches are bringing modern benefits to its capital, Caracas.
The discovery of large oil deposits in 1922 transformed Venezuela from an agricultural nation into a global energy powerhouse.
It went on to become one of the five founding members of the oil cartel OPEC in 1960.
And with the oil boom of the 1970s, Venezuela nationalized the industry,
taking over a lot of foreign-owned oil assets and forming PDVSA, the state-owned giant.
By the late 1990s, 2 million barrels a day, more than half the country's oil output, was heading north.
Venezuela's importance to the United States can be summed up this way: Oil.
It is the third-largest supplier to the United States
and has some of the largest reserves of crude oil in the world.
And sitting on top of it all is the charismatic, autocratic president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
Chavez was elected in 1998 and dramatically increased state control of the oil industry.
Or, as Donald Trump put it:
We built Venezuela oil industry with American talent, drive, and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us.
Production declined due to underinvestment and mismanagement of PDVSA.
When Chavez died in 2013, Nicolas Maduro took office.
The following year, the oil price crashed.
The Venezuelan economy slipped into what has become a perma-crisis.
Millions fled the country, and those who stayed faced shortages of food, fuel, and medicine.