Anatoly Kurmanaev

And remember, Natalie, that this country has just been beginning to emerge from another extremely deep economic crisis, which was caused by Maduro's terrible economic policies and corruption, but was aggravated by American sanctions.

And life has become...

a little bit easier in the last few years.

The government has liberalized the economy, took away many of the currency and price control that have been hobbling economic activity.

People could breathe.

People could work.

They could invest a little bit.

They could see the return on their investment.

And this new pressure campaign by Trump is crumbling all these plans.

And inside of Maduro administration,

is disbelief and anxiety.

They are still scrambling to figure out what exactly is happening, how they can react to it.

Ships are afraid to come to Venezuela.

They're turning around.

They are unwilling to take Venezuelan crew.

They're sitting in ports because they're afraid of being seized.

And the oil has to be pumped.

The oil has to keep coming on the ground.

Venezuela doesn't have a lot of storage.

It doesn't know what to do with it.