Topic A Updates

Hello Delegates!


This is Zak; I’m excited to see you soon.


Before BMUN starts, we thought it would be helpful to provide an update on Topic A: The Venezuelan Economic crisis. 


Venezuela has experienced some marginal improvements since the topic synopsis was written. The Council on Foreign Relations (https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/instability-venezuela) reports that support for the Maduro regime has strengthened recently. Importantly, the Biden administration has retracted US recognition of Juan Guadió as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. While retaining the support of countries like Russia, China, Cuba and Turkey, Maduro has also found new friends in the recently elected leaders of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. 


The Council on Foreign Relations also describes how there has been some stabilization in Venezuelan inflation in 2022; inflation rates hovered at above 50%. However, in 2023, inflation rates began rapidly increasing once more. The 2022 improvements were not due to chance. Maduro did take some steps to try to improve Venezuela's economy. Maduro allowed transactions in the US dollar, heavily limited the circulation of bolivars, privatized some of Venezuela's industry, and began publishing economic indicators. Most of these actions had modest success; however, industry privatization and dollarization stand out for opposite reasons. Industry privatization has drawn criticism from organizations like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (https://www.csis.org/analysis/parsing-fact-and-fiction-maduro-regimes-narrative-economic-recovery), who claim that life is good almost exclusively for those who are well-connected to Maduro, and seem to imply that the benefactors of privatization are business-owners loyal to Maduro. Use of the US dollar has had lasting beneficial effects on the Venezuelan economy, with about 60% of all transactions in Venezuela occurring with the dollar according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 


Additionally, some airlines have resumed flights to Venezuela, and the tourism industry is slowly recovering from Venezuela economic hardship and corresponding rise in violence. A reporter for Deutsche-Welle documents their positive experience in the country here: https://youtu.be/Pq01gSdoe9s?si=34_zXbUtjyGV9O_T. 


I hope this was helpful in getting you all up to speed on the current state of Venezuela. As always feel free to contact any of us with questions. Additionally, it would be a great idea to read through all the links I have in this post to do some extra research before committee!

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