Venezuela In The Early 1900's

In ancient times, Venezuela was a paradise forindians. It had beautiful beaches, tropical forests, and gentle grassland of the Llanos. In 1498, the first European, by the name of Christopher Columbus, came to the country. He came during his third voyage of the new world. More explorers came the year after and then eventually the spanish established their first settlement, Nueva Cadiz, which was later destroyed by a tsunami. The colonies in Venezuela were much less important to the Spanish than the mineral-producing colonies of Western South America, but Venezuela would later surprise the world when massive oil reserves would be discovered (InterKnowledge). Venezuela wasn’t really important to the Spanish Empire but, it did give birth to a very
man who, one day, would cause trouble to the empire. The man was Simon Bolivar. With the help of British mercenaries, Bolivar and his followers campaigned against the Spanish tirelessly, marching across the Andes and liberating countries like Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia (InterKnowledge). In the early 1900’s, they discovered oil in the country and, this helped them get on its economic feet, and by the 20s Venezuela was beginning to reap the benefits.
Most of the wealth remained with the upper-class and dictatorship continued until 1947 when Romulo Betancourt led a popular revolt and rewrote the constitution (InterKnowledge). That same year Venezuela had their first president elect but, he was ousted by another dictator and did not experience a non-violent presidential succession until 1963 (InterKnowledge). Things would go well for the next 25 years though. In the mid-1970’s, they had an oil boom and saw enormous wealth pour into the country, but, sadly, the lower-class still got little benefit. When, in the late 80’s, the oil prices dropped the country was thrown into crisis. Economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s led to a political crisis in which hundreds died in the Caracazo riots of 1989, two attempted coups d'état in 1992 ("America's | Profile: Hugo Chavez."), and the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez (re-elected in 1988) for corruption in 1993. Coup leader Hugo Chávez was pardoned in March 1994 by president Rafael Caldera, with a clean slate and his political rights reinstated ("Venezuela."). The President of Venezuela is currently Nicolás Maduro. He has been in office since 14 April 2013, after winning the second presidential election after Chávez's
death.
EXPORTS & IMPORTS: Venezuela was once a rich country with strong leadership and heavy social spending (McCarthy).
Venezuela is now in economic disaster. The country could slide into widespread social disorder, triggering instability throughout all of Latin America (McCarthy). Its main export is oil. It has the largest, proven, oil reserves in the world. Venezuela depends on oil for 95% of all of its export revenue. And, exports in iron ore, coal, bauxite, gold, nickel, and diamonds, are in various stages of development and production. In April 2000, Venezuela's President decreed a new mining law, and regulations were adopted to encourage greater private sector participation in mineral extraction. During Venezuela's economic crisis, the rate of gold excavated fell 64.1% between February 2013 and February 2014 and iron production dropped 49.8% (Blasco). In 2015 Venezuela exported $34.3 billion dollars worth of materials (Simoes). The most recent exports are led by Crude Petroleum which represent 72.6% of the total exports of Venezuela, followed by Refined Petroleum, which account for 16.2% (Simoes). As well as exporting, Venezuela imported $27.5 billion dollars worth of materials. Its most recent exports were refined Petroleum and packaged medicaments.During the last five years the imports of Venezuela have decreased at an annualized rate of -5.4%
(Simoes).

TRADE DEALS & AGREEMENTS Since 2012, Venezuela has been an observer in the on-going negotiations of an EU-Mercosur Association Agreement as candidate country to Mercosur (European Commission). Venezuela has three main trading partners. They trade with the EU, US, and China. Venezuela's biggest exports to the EU are made of fuels and mining products while the EU mostly exports manufactured products to Venezuela (European Commission).

CURRENCY The currency in Venezuela is the Venezuelan bolívar. This has been the currency of the country since January 1, 2008. Just in November 2016, the bolivar has lost 55% of its value, one dollar was worth 3,840 bolivars (Gillespie). Food prices have skyrocketed forcing vendors to stop because they would sell at a loss (Gillespie).

DEMOGRAPHICS The people of Venezuela include a multitude of heritages. The different races that contributed to this are the Amerindians, Spanish colonists, and African slaves. The Europeans (Italians, Portuguese, and Germans) also helped when they migrated in the 20th century. About 51.6% of the population is Mestizo, while 43.6% are white of European ancestry and/or Middle Eastern ancestry, another 3.7% is black/African, while 2.7% is of full Amerindian ancestry, and 1.0% other races ("DEMOGRÁFICOS.").

GDP The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Venezuela was worth 509.97 billion US dollars in 2014 (Venezuela GDP). The GDP value of Venezuela represents 0.82 percent of the world economy (Venezuela GDP).

POLITICAL CLIMATE When Chavez was in power, he immediately implemented a dictatorship and ruined a once thriving oil industry (Bonicelli). Unfortunately, he died before he could face the consequences. Many thought that with his death that things would change but, this would not be the case. The curropt government elected Nicolas Maduro and it made things worse. Anytime someone tries to go against the regime they are either murdered or jailed. Venezuelans go without basic goods like toilet paper and nourishing food and, the government appears helpless to deal with murder, robbery, assault, and corruption (Bonicelli).