Venezuela - VE - VEN - VEN - South America

Venezuela was one of three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Ecuador and New Granada, which became Colombia). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by military strongmen who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Although democratically elected governments largely held sway since 1959, the executive branch under Hugo CHAVEZ, president from 1999 to 2013, exercised increasingly authoritarian control over other branches of government.  This undemocratic trend continued in 2018 when Nicolas MADURO claimed the presidency for his second term in an election boycotted by most opposition parties and widely viewed as fraudulent.

The last democratically-elected institution is the 2015 National Assembly. In 2020, legislative elections were held for a new National Assembly, which the opposition boycotted, and which were widely condemned as fraudulent. The resulting assembly is viewed by most opposition parties and many international actors as illegitimate. In November 2021, most opposition parties broke a three-year election boycott to participate in mayoral and gubernatorial elections, despite flawed conditions. As a result, the opposition more than doubled its representation at the mayoral level and retained four of 23 governorships. The 2021 regional elections marked the first time since 2006 that the EU was allowed to send an electoral observation mission to Venezuela.

MADURO places strong restrictions on freedoms of expression and the press. Since CHAVEZ, the ruling party's economic policies expanded the state's role in the economy through expropriations of major enterprises, strict currency exchange and price controls that discourage private sector investment and production, and over-dependence on the petroleum industry for revenues, among others. Years of economic mismanagement left Venezuela ill-prepared to weather the global drop in oil prices in 2014, sparking an economic decline that has resulted in reduced government social spending, shortages of basic goods, and high inflation. Worsened living conditions have prompted nearly 8 million Venezuelans to migrate, mainly settling in nearby countries. Since 2017, the US has imposed financial sanctions on MADURO and his representatives and, since 2018, on sectors of the Venezuelan economy. This began to change in response to MADURO and his representatives making democratic and electoral concessions, particularly in October 2023 when the opposition-led Unitary Platform signed an electoral roadmap agreement with MADURO representatives in Barbados. As a result, MADURO and his representatives received limited sanctions relief. MADURO and his representatives' mismanagement and lack of investment in infrastructure has debilitated the country's energy sector. Caracas has more recently relaxed some economic controls to mitigate the impact of its sustained economic crisis, such as allowing increased import flexibility for private citizens and companies and the informal use of US dollars and other international currencies. Still, ongoing concerns include human rights abuses, rampant violent crime, political manipulation of the judicial and electoral systems, and corruption.

a major drug-transit country and trafficking route in the Western Hemisphere for illegal drugs mainly cocaine;  government depends on rents from narco-trafficking, along with other illicit activities, to maintain power;  evidence of coca cultivation and cocaine production in domestic drug laboratories suggests the country is now also an illicit drug-producing country;  a major source of precursor or essential chemicals used in the production of illicit narcotics

A New Era (Un Nuevo Tiempo) or UNT [Omar Enrique BARBOZA Gutierrez]
Brave People's Alliance or ABP [Antonio LEDEZMA]
Cambiemos Movimiento Ciudadano or CMC [Timoteo ZAMBRANO]
Christian Democrats or COPEI [Juan Carlos ALVARADO Prato, Roberto ENRIQUEZ]
Citizens Encounter or EC [Delsa SOLORZANO]
Clear Accounts or CC [Enzo SCARANO]
Coalition of parties loyal to Nicolas MADURO - Great Patriotic Pole or GPP [Nicolas MADURO]
Coalition of opposition parties - Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democratica) (includes AD, EL CAMBIO, COPEI, CMC, and AP)
Come Venezuela (Vente Venezuela) or VV [Maria Corina MACHADO]
Communist Party of Venezuela or PCV [Oscar FIGUERA]
Consenso en la Zona or Conenzo [Enzo SCARANO and Leon JURADO]
Convergencia [Juan Jose CALDERA]
Democratic Action or AD [Jose Bernabe GUTIERREZ Parra]
Fatherland for All (Patria para Todos) or PPT [Ilenia MEDINA]
Fuerza Vecinal or FV [leaders include mayors Gustavo DUQUE, Darwin GONZALEZ, Elias SAYEGH, Manuel FERREIRA, Josy FERNANDEZ, and Morel David RODRIGUEZ]; note - national spokesman David UZCATEGUI
Hope for Change (Esperanza por el Cambio) or EL CAMBIO [Javier Alejandro BERTUCCI Carrero]
Justice First (Primero Justicia) or PJ [Tomas GUANIPA]
LAPIZ [Antonio Domingo ECARRI Angola]
Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo) or MAS [Segundo MELENDEZ]
Popular Will (Voluntad Popular) or VP [Leopoldo LOPEZ]
Progressive Advance (Avanzada Progresista) or AP [Henri FALCON]
The Radical Cause or La Causa R [Andres VELAZQUEZ]
United Socialist Party of Venezuela or PSUV [Nicolas MADURO]
Venezuela First (Primero Venezuela) or PV [Luis PARRA]
Venezuelan Progressive Movement or MPV [Simon CALZADILLA]
Venezuela Project or PV [Carlos BERRIZBEITIA]

human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Venezuela, as well as Venezuelans abroad; more than six million Venezuelans, facing continued economic, political, and humanitarian crises, have fled to neighboring countries and are at risk of human trafficking; traffickers exploit Venezuelans in Aruba, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Macau, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay; Venezuelan women and girls are particularly at risk of sex trafficking in neighboring countries; women, including transgender women, have been lured to Spain and Germany with fraudulent employment offers and subjected to forced surgical procedures before being exploited in commercial sex; Venezuelan men are exploited in forced labor in other countries, including Aruba and Curacao; within Venezuela, Venezuelan women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking and child sex tourism; children are exploited in sex trafficking and forced labor, including in farming, domestic service, construction, mining, and criminal groups; non-state armed groups—including illegal Colombian groups near border regions—force some Venezuelans into criminal acts, use as child soldiers, and exploitation in sex trafficking and forced labor; members of the Maduro regime most likely tolerate or sometimes collude with the armed groups’ trafficking; sex and labor trafficking victims from South American, Caribbean, Asian, and African countries have been reported in Venezuela; the Cuban Government may be exploiting Cuban workers in medical missions in Venezuela (2023)

Social investment in Venezuela during the CHAVEZ administration reduced poverty from nearly 50% in 1999 to about 27% in 2011, increased school enrollment, substantially decreased infant and child mortality, and improved access to potable water and sanitation through social investment. "Missions" dedicated to education, nutrition, healthcare, and sanitation were funded through petroleum revenues. The sustainability of this progress remains questionable, however, as the continuation of these social programs depends on the prosperity of Venezuela's oil industry. In the long-term, education and health care spending may increase economic growth and reduce income inequality, but rising costs and the staffing of new health care jobs with foreigners are slowing development.

While CHAVEZ was in power, more than one million predominantly middle- and upper-class Venezuelans are estimated to have emigrated. The brain drain is attributed to a repressive political system, lack of economic opportunities, steep inflation, a high crime rate, and corruption. Thousands of oil engineers emigrated to Canada, Colombia, and the United States following CHAVEZ's firing of over 20,000 employees of the state-owned petroleum company during a 2002-03 oil strike. Additionally, thousands of Venezuelans of European descent have taken up residence in their ancestral homelands. Nevertheless, Venezuela has attracted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from South America and southern Europe because of its lenient migration policy and the availability of education and health care. Venezuela also has been a fairly accommodating host to Colombian refugees, numbering about 170,000 as of year-end 2016. However, since 2014, falling oil prices have driven a major economic crisis that has pushed Venezuelans from all walks of life to migrate or to seek asylum abroad to escape severe shortages of food, water, and medicine; soaring inflation; unemployment; and violence. As of September 2022, an estimated 7.1 million Venezuelans were refugees or migrants worldwide, with almost 80% taking refuge in Latin America and the Caribbean (notably Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil, as well as the Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Curacao). Asylum applications increased significantly in the US and Brazil in 2016 and 2017. Several receiving countries are making efforts to increase immigration restrictions and to deport illegal Venezuelan migrants - Ecuador and Peru in August 2018 began requiring valid passports for entry, which are difficult to obtain for Venezuelans. Nevertheless, Venezuelans continue to migrate to avoid economic collapse at home.

Venezuela-Brazil: none identified

Venezuela-Colombia: dispute with Colombia over maritime boundary and Venezuelan administered Los Monjes Islands near the Gulf of Venezuela; Colombian-organized illegal narcotics and paramilitary activities penetrate Venezuela's shared border region; the border between the two countries was closed from March 2020 to October 2021 due to COVID, but goods and people fleeing poverty and violence continued to be smuggled from Venezuela into Colombia, and illegal narcotics and armed men flowed into Venezuela from Colombia; since the FARC disarmed in 2016, some former members have formed armed dissident groups that operate along the border

Venezuela-Guyana: Caracas claims all of the area west of the Essequibo River in Guyana, preventing any discussion of a maritime boundary; in 2018, Guyana initiated proceedings against Venezuela with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) while Venezuela requested a direct dialogue to settle the dispute; the ICJ ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the case in December 2020; in December 2023, the Venezuelan Government held a referendum on the disputed oil-rich Essequibo region and announced measures to exert administrative control over the area; in 2024, Venezuela increased its military presence near the border, and the parliament approved the creation of a new state in the disputed territory

Venezuela-various:  Venezuela claims Aves Island and thereby an economic exclusion Zone/continental shelf extending over a large portion of the eastern Caribbean Sea; Venezuela’s claim to Aves Island is disputed by Dominica and several other countries because the island has rich guano deposits useful in producing fertilizer and gunpowder, as well as large fish stocks and natural gas reserves; contraband smuggling (narcotics and arms), illegal migration, trafficking in animals, plants, lumber, illegal exploitation of mineral resources