Venezuela is the victim of the sanctions of Donald Trump, while in countries governed by neoliberalism such as Argentina, harsh adjustment measures are being imposed on the middle classes and popular sectors, for the benefit of transnationals and economic elites. Those who suffer, in both cases, are the people.

Since 2017, Venezuela has been suffering a severe crisis, the root causes of which are multiple economic and financial sanctions imposed by the United States, the superpower that has decided to strangle the government of Nicolás Maduro, castigating the Venezuelan population, provoking food shortages, rising prices and massive emigration. Nevertheless, countries allied to the United States, such as Argentina, are undergoing a greater economic crisis characterized by neoliberal measures that provoke business closures, unemployment and hyperinflation.

Sanctions against Venezuela

The economic and financial war that the United States has undertaken against Venezuela could become even harsher, but this is not happened because to some extent this country depends on Venezuelan petroleum. Their greatest customer is the United States. 33% of Venezuelan crude is exported to the Northern neighbor country.

Up to now, Washington has not interrupted the purchase of Venezuelan petroleum, because such a measure could provoke a negative reaction from United States’ consumers that in the short run would prejudice the political aspirations of President Trump. Gasoline at the pumps could rise in price and prejudice ordinary consumers, and create discontent among citizens, which would affect Donald Trump’s party in the US Congress midterm elections, this November.

On the other hand, although they are less influential in the global economy than the United States, Russia and China could increase support for Venezuela, tying her more to their block. US analysts point out this danger. A blocking of its exports of petroleum would push Venezuela even more toward deals with the big petroleum companies of these superpowers.

Even if the US is still hesitating when it comes to trade in crude, the same thing has not happened with finance. On Monday May 21, Trump signed a decree hardening financial sanctions against Venezuela, making it difficult for Caracas to sell state assets, after the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro. The decree is an executive order that prohibits US citizens from buying debt obligations from Venezuela. Caracas had utilized these instruments to obtain income to satisfy the need for liquidity.

So far, in 1918, the Trump government has imposed more than fifty economic sanctions on the country of Bolivar; one of these was the blocking of international payments for imports. Luis Vicente León, director of Datanalisis, a private Venezuelan centre of surveys and analysis, pointed out in an opinion column that these measures only punish the Venezuelan people, “given that Venezuelan citizens cannot obtain what they need such as food and medicines.” (The Spectator, May 21 2018). “The sanctions do not punish the government alone; they punish the country. They punish the businessman, who cannot easily sell his products. They punish the exporter who has problems with international banking. They punish the people who cannot obtain what they need. Hence this is not the solution”, said León in a television interview (op. cit.).

The Venezuelan government needs economic resources to purchase food and medicine. Therefore, it is turning to its allies, Russia and China, to obtain loans. These sanctions on the daily life of Venezuelans are provoking extreme shortages of all kinds of products in supply centres and an exorbitant rise of prices, a situation that has caused thousands of Venezuelans to emigrate to other countries.

The wave of Venezuelan migration in South America

It is estimated that to date nearly two million Venezuelans have emigrated to different South American countries because of the economic crisis.

The migratory wave of Venezuelans to Argentina has accelerated since the arrival of Mauricio Macri to power (December of 2015). In 2017, there were 31.000 Venezuelans who came to that country, according to a report of the Directory of Migrations. In January 2018 alone, 9.800 Venezuelans arrived. In 2016 and 2017, 44.000 citizens of this country were granted settlement.

The Argentine government has decided to fully open its borders to Venezuelans. The way to request settlement for these citizens is quite simple. According to the Direction of Migration, all they need is an identity document, to have come through an authorized entry point, a certificate of a lack of criminal antecedents in their country and another from Argentina, and proof of residence.

The Interior minister Rogelio Frigerio asked the population to be open to “people who come to work and not to be delinquent,” referring to Venezuelan immigrants. The position of the Macri government promotes Argentinian acceptance of these migrants. Frigerio explained that they have made conditions more flexible without losing sight of security and the requirements that Venezuelan immigrants should meet. This means that the requirement for a certificate of the lack of criminal antecedents can be temporarily suspended for those who do not have it, but sooner or later the certificate will be required.

In only about three years, Venezuelans rapidly reached third place among the immigrant population in Argentina, after Paraguayans and Bolivians. However, the increase of immigrants from these two nationalities dates from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and at present the majority already have Argentinian nationality. In addition, these immigrant populations have not only not increased but have decreased in that country.

The phenomenon of Venezuelan migration creates a problem for countries governed by neoliberalism, which are those that are opening their borders to them, creating conflict with the nationals who want to get on in spite of the harsh measures of structural adjustment. In Argentina, one sees constant acts of xenophobia against the Venezuelans, who are insulted as “chorros” (thieves) even though there is a governmental campaign of integration.

In other countries such as Ecuador, there have been demonstrations against them. In an improvised camp in the North of Quito, fifty Venezuelans were living in awful conditions; they have not found work, according to Telesur last September 5. “We have decided to return to our country, to struggle there for a better future,” said a 45-year-old man. “Sadly xenophobia has started to take shape in a society that has always had open doors (...). There is a permanent offensive all the time and everywhere that creates this rejection, that creates a vision that the Venezuelan comes to take something away,” a Venezuelan women who has lived in Ecuador for many years and has seen how things have changed for immigrants, explained to Telesur.

In a demonstration against Venezuelans in Quito, a poster stated: “Mr. Lenin, President of Ecuadorians, not of Venezuelans! They are guests, not householders, put an end to informal sales.” Many Venezuelans, whose hopes, motivated by constant, unlimited propaganda through social media, were to come to a foreign country where they would find work and food, are now disappointed and desperate to abandon Ecuador and return to their country.

Something similar is happening in Peru. On September 5, a flight of the Maduro government’s Plan Return to the Fatherland, brought 89 Venezuelans back to their country from Lima, Peru. The Venezuelans, who accepted this plan, before leaving, shared their experiences with Telesur: “There are Venezuelans who are sleeping in the streets, they offer them work but that’s a lie,” said a man over 50 years old. “The truth is that we came here for a better life, so no... I prefer to be in Venezuela, in my home, that is simply it,” said a young 25 year old woman. Another woman who went to the Amazonas, and was brutally exploited while pregnant is 22-year-old Auri,: “there was no medical control, I didn’t know how the baby was doing, I worked 20 hours a day, being pregnant.” In the images shown by Telesur, all of them, men, women and children, were content to return to their country.

Asked by a journalist how many months he had spent in Lima, one of the migrants responded, on the edge of tears, “three months, the three worst months of my whole life.” A mother with little children in her arms said, “It is very different when one arrives, then you understand that here the labour laws don’t function, they work 12 hours a day, there is no rest, the pay is bad. So, what is the benefit? In my country this has been more than abolished. This is slavery, I prefer to return home. If I’m going to struggle for four reales as we say, then I’ll struggle for the same four reales, but there I am free.”

The offensive by all the media, television, social networks, confuses people and leads them to take false steps. The immigrants promise themselves that, when they return, they will struggle for their homeland, to move their country forward.

In the streets of Lima, dozens of Venezuelan migrants, men and women, attempt to survive by selling in the markets, selling mostly corn patties, where they clash with Peruvians, who also sell informally. And these clashes are exploited by the media to promote xenophobia. In Peru there are more than 100.000 Venezuelans.

The Venezuelan government’s decision to establish an air shuttle between the principal South American cities and Caracas in the framework of Plan Return to the Fatherland, following the successful call that they already made in cities such as Lima, will contribute to the decrease of Venezuelan immigrants.

Neoliberal policies in Argentina

Neoliberal policies punish popular sectors and the middle classes in all the countries governed by neoliberalism. Argentina is no exception. The Venezuelans in search of work in order to live modestly with dignity, impelled by the crisis in their own country, and by media terrorism against the government of Nicolás Maduro, through the mass communication media and social networks, take on the adventure of travelling by land, sometimes on foot, to these countries where they must face a population that is in a similar situation, or worse.

In Argentina the government of Macri, guided by neoliberal economic pragmatism, has decided to implement policies of structural adjustment downwards, towards the man in the street, and not to those above; to strangle the middle classes, small and medium businesses, workers, all of which generates greater social injustice.

They have suppressed taxes on exports of the manufacturing industry, and of the agriculture and livestock sector (except that of soya, where the reduction will be gradual), and of mining, and they have opened the country to imports, eliminating obstacles defined as bureaucratic. They have implemented a reform of the tax system that establishes a reduction of the tax rate for the profits of industry (from 30 to 35%) and a reduction of the tax on personal assets (1,25% for those with assets over 5 million pesos, moving progressively to 0.25 in 2019). (Arencibia, September 5, 2018). That is to say, the government has concentrated on policies that benefit economic elites and transnationals.

Macri has accepted a multi-million loan from the IMF to alleviate the crisis in the country, putting it into debt as never before, as if this were the solution. Factories are closing throughout Argentina, with massive layoffs of workers, and a rise in prices of basic services. These are measures against the population, following the logic of reducing costs for the State and transnational companies, for an increase in the profits of the latter.

With respect to lessening the weight of the State’s responsibility for Argentine society, they will follow on with cuts to expenditure on public works, cuts in subsidies for electricity and gas, which will mean an increase in rates for public services. The subsidies for automotive transport will be taken on by the provinces and cities. They will freeze the wages of public servants, in addition to other expenses of national administration, for which they have reduced the number of ministries by half, leaving at the level of secretariats the ministries of Labour, Health, Science and Technology and Culture, among others. Various social organizations hit the streets to repudiate these decisions (op. cit.).

All this results in the reduction of the State to its minimal expression, which will make it incapable of responding to the needs of society. This is what is desired, this is the neoliberal State, the destiny of society is left to the free market and the role of the State is to facilitate the movement of transnational business. This is the case of Argentina.

For the month of October, an increase in the rates of gas of 30% is expected. Inflation estimated by the government for this year is 42%, an increase in fuel prices will follow with the impact that this has on the prices of basic goods. Pensioners continue to lose income in the face of the price increases. According to Arencibia, no financial recourse can deal with these problems, which are economic and structural.

At the end of 2017, a family of two adults and two small children needed 6.144 pesos to cover their monthly consumption of food, while in the recent month of August this year they would have needed 8.007 to cover the same costs.

The analyst Claudio Fabrán Guevara writes “the colonial administration of Mauricio Macri has undertaken, in an accelerated form, an economic program that appears to be a premeditated design to bring the country to its knees (Guevara, September 5, 2018).

Some elements of this program are: the unrestricted opening to imports, the savage increase of the rates of public services; tax relief for large industrial groups of agriculture and mining. Where will the Argentine State obtain income if the economic elites do not contribute? Nor do the business elites want to contribute to creating employment, hence the layoffs in the private sector with a logic of reducing production costs. These measures have obliged Argentina to hold out its hand and bow its head to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

To this is added hyperinflation, the devaluation of Argentine currency. As if this were not enough, the rates of public services were dollarized, so that every increase of the dollar impacts indirectly on the internal cost of production of goods and services. There will be thousands more layoffs in the coming months.

According to Guevara, the colonial administration is not only attacking the income levels of the working class, but also undermining the bases of sustenance of local capitalists. “This is a question of an induced collapse: the country is moving towards the cessation of payments, productive paralysis and massive unemployment” (op. cit.). A complete disaster for popular sectors and the middle classes. This is a new neoliberalism that unlike the neoliberalism of the 1990s is imposed without discretion, shamelessly loyal to free market principles for small and medium businesses, and state benefits for big business and the multinationals.

As social mobilization in rejection of the measures implemented by Macri is obvious, a second batch of policies refers to the previous dismantling of any intent of resistance and active social opposition. They are imposing repressive measures such as: the silencing of critical journalists and media; imprisonment and judicial pressures against opposition leaders; the arrival of US troops and the establishment of military bases.

Countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Brazil are following the same steps as Argentina, since they are also governed by antinational and colonial neoliberalism. In the final instance, their peoples are victims of United States imperialism, whose dictates are obeyed without any objection by their governments, who have as a priority the favourable treatment of transnationals and economic elites.

The Venezuelan migration to these countries was the best lesson for many; it opened their eyes, blinded by the media terrorism in social networks, and brought them to understand that the responsibility for this crisis is with the United States, both in Venezuela, which is subjected to an economic and financial war, and in other countries that have become its colonies.

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan and Joan Remple Bishop)

Emilio Hurtado Guzmán, writer and journalist.  Writes for Semanario Alerta, specialized in politics and the economy, Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

Sources consulted

Arencibia, Fabiana. “Nuevas/viejas medidas y un mismo destinatario: El FMI”. In: América Latina en Movimiento, September 5 2018.

Gambina C. Julio. “Macri reconoce que su política incrementa la pobreza”. In: Rebelión.org, August 21 2018.

Guevara, Claudio Fabián. “Tres metas del Nuevo Orden Mundial en el colapso económico argentina”. In: América Latina en Movimiento, September 5 2018.

Majfud, Jorge. “Y cuando los de abajo despertaron, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí”. In: América Latina en Movimiento, September 3 2018.

“La llegada de venezolanos a Argentina creció 1.600 % en cinco años”. Portal: Perfil.

“Siguen los despidos y crece el desempleo”. In: Indymedia, July 31 2018.