The collapse of Venezuela
- Date
- c. 2016–2019 (Venezuelan collapse)
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Venezuela / Latin America
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
From around 2016, Venezuela — holder of the world's largest proven oil reserves — descended into one of the deepest peacetime economic collapses in modern history.
Years of price controls, mismanagement, corruption and over-reliance on oil, compounded by a crash in oil prices and later by US sanctions, produced shortages of food and medicine, the breakdown of public services and the collapse of the currency. Hyperinflation, technically triggered in late 2016, ran into the millions of percent over the following years, wiping out savings and forcing the economy toward de facto dollarisation. The economy contracted by more than half, and over 7.7 million Venezuelans fled the country — one of the largest displacement crises in the world and the largest in the Americas — mostly on foot to Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador and beyond. A bitter political standoff intensified in 2019 when opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president, winning recognition from dozens of governments, while Nicolás Maduro retained control of the military and state. The collapse marked a dramatic reversal of the petro-state's earlier oil-funded prosperity.
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Related economy & trade events
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Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
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