Chapter 1: Is President Trump planning military action in Venezuela?
Is President Trump planning to send troops to Venezuela? Last week while reporters pressed him on the Pentagon's boat strikes, Trump reiterated his claim that this is about preventing fentanyl from entering the U.S.
People that are trying to get their son or their daughter off of this poison that they've been fed. I think you're going to find that there's a very receptive ear to doing exactly what they're doing, taking out those boats.
And then he said this. Very soon we're going to start doing it on land, too. In Venezuela, people can do nothing but wait. Trump's off-the-cuff remarks sparked these cycles of anxiety and fear.
I did see people going to the supermarket. I mean, the meat was gone and the chicken was gone. But then two days after that... Then just more waiting. Nothing had happened. Everything was back to normal.
Coming up on Today Explained, in Venezuela, waiting for the Americans.
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Chapter 2: How are Venezuelans coping with the threat of U.S. military action?
Peace forever, forever, forever.
He actually said that that was like a national mandate for people to party all week long because we needed, well, his followers needed to show the U.S. and the world that they're not worried about anything because he claims this is just a psychological war that they've survived in the past.
He has survived successfully in the past pressure, not only from the U.S., but internally from the opposition, protests, demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people on the streets. He believes that if he sits down, or at least this is what he is showing, if he sits down and wait, this is all going to go away. And he has done that in the past. So, you know, that's his strategy.
It has worked and it makes total sense.
Anna Vanessa Herrero in Caracas. She reports for The Washington Post. Coming up, what Maduro wants from a reporter who knows him. Support for today's show comes from Quince. We've all handed someone a gift and received a force. Thank you. I love it. This holiday season, Quince can give you something that's both luxurious and built to last. So you can finally get a real thank you.
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Chapter 3: What is the current economic situation in Venezuela?
And then he became his vice president. Chávez discovered that he had cancer in about 2011, early 2012, and privately knew he was dying. And he had a televised moment when he told the Venezuelan nation that he was, you know, he hoped to be around, but if anything happened to him.
They elect Nicolás Maduro as president of the Bolivarian Republic.
You know, Chavez died in 2013, and that's exactly what happened. Nicolas Maduro replaced him in power. To look at Venezuela today from the U.S. is to see a country that is an economic basket case, a country that people desperately want to flee because they are so poor. What was Venezuela like? What was happening when Maduro took over?
from 2003 or 4, I think it was, until about 2012, 13, you had this worldwide spike in oil prices that brought in about a trillion dollars to Venezuela. It's a massive amount of money for any of the countries of the hemisphere outside of the United States. Venezuela was almost like an extension of the United States. They were Of course, there were the poor. There were the poor in the hills.
And the hinterland was basically undeveloped. But the oil prices in the world, you know, they went up to $150 a barrel at one point.
The country grew dependent on imports, and the steep drop in oil prices left it unable to pay for even some of the most basic necessities.
They dropped precipitously right around the time Nicolas Maduro succeeded Chavez in office. And it went from, let's say, 120 to 40 or something. It was a real drop in their income. As oil prices went up, Venezuela spent it all.
And we're going to continue into the intensification of the hyperinflation that we have at the moment.
the effect on Venezuelan society was immediate.
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