NEW YORK, NEW YORK (By The Atlantic, 22.Oct.2026, Words: 198) — More than a century ago, oil was discovered in Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, the largest body of water in South America.
Tens of billions of barrels’ worth of reserves are thought to remain beneath the water-but they will not be easy to extract, Anne Applebaum writes.
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The oil boom built the cities of Caracas and Maracaibo, three generations of wealth, and four decades of democracy-but after the boom came the bust. Hugo Chávez and then Nicolás Maduro undermined the industry, chased away engineers, and impoverished workers.
“Even as they said they were building ‘Bolivarian socialism, they removed benefits, lowered salaries, and created a capricious, repressive regime,” Applebaum continues.
Maduro was captured and taken from the country by an American military operation earlier this year. The relationship being built between the US and the Venezuelan government it installed is not one of two equals, “nor is it exactly an occupation,” Applebaum writes.
She asked Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard economist who served at the Venezuela government decades ago, how he would describe it: “A coalition of two kleptocracies,” he said.
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NOTE: photos courtesy of The Atlantic.
