Democracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion U.S. oil sanctions are hurting Venezuelans. Time for a new approach to pressure Maduro.

By
December 4, 2019 at 2:51 p.m. EST
A sculpture outside a building of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA in Caracas. (Ivan Alvarado/Reuters)

Francisco Rodríguez is the founder and director of Oil for Venezuela and a former head of research of the United Nations’ Human Development Report.

Venezuela is living through the deepest economic and humanitarian crisis in our hemisphere in more than a century. This catastrophe was triggered by the mismanagement and corruption of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Yet it is now increasingly clear that U.S. economic sanctions are also aggravating it.