Since the beginning of the 20th century, the exploitation of oil in Venezuela has shaped particular characteristics of capitalist development: the formation of social classes and their political representation, the model of bourgeois enrichment, and forms of social control. The Brazilian economist Celso Furtado defined the Venezuelan case as “underdevelopment with an abundance of foreign exchange,” manifested in deindustrialisation, corruption, rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and severe poverty crises.

The neo-fascist in the White House is attempting to bring the Caribbean island and its government to its knees, strangling it economically once and for all, killing its people with darkness and scarcity. But this is not “just” a war against Cuba and its revolutionary tradition. It is the continuation of the war against the sovereignty of all Latin American countries and Latino peoples within the United States. Scheinbaum, Lula, Petro, Orsi and the social democratic governments must emphatically oppose this crime in all international forums and organisations.