By Pascualina Curcio on April 4, 2022
-After 9 years of incessant and inhuman aggression against the Venezuelan people, of the application of coercive, unilateral and illegal measures that have implied economic losses in the order of 258 billion dollars between 2016 and 2020, equivalent to the import of food and medicines for 60 years;
-After having withheld 6 billion dollars in international banking preventing, among other things, preventing children of our Homeland from being surgically operated on;
– After a systematic attack against PDVSA that resulted in an 80% drop in our oil production from 2.8 million barrels per day in 2013 to 568 thousand barrels per day in 2020 and a 93% decrease in our export revenues from $93 billion in 2012 to $7 billion in 2020;
-After a criminal attack against the bolivar inducing its depreciation by 274,249,422,632,694% since 2012 deriving in hyperinflation and deterioration of the living conditions of an entire people;
-After planning the programmed shortage of food and medicines generating long lines and affecting the tranquility of all Venezuelan homes; after having financed episodes of violence by the hand of the most extremist opposition political factors in which they closed streets, burned Venezuelans alive and mounted guarimbas;
– After having supported the unconstitutional self-proclamation of Guaidó as “internal” president of the Republic; after having stolen CITGO from us which has resulted in an annual loss of 11 billion dollars plus 7 billion in assets;
– After leaving us, the whole country in darkness in an electrical sabotage; after all the attempts to isolate us from the world with threats; after they hired mercenaries to invade us through our coasts;
– After all the genocidal actions against our people, the White House, with its well-washed face, they cynically send two spokesmen to Miraflores.
They come to “ask us” to supply them with oil – at least that is what they say -. For those who seem to have doubts, we are not just any country, we are the jewel in the crown, we are the first oil and gold reserve in the world and we are strategically and privileged in where we are located on the globe.
It is very interesting that the visit was public, notorious, with cameras, lights, reflectors and powerful amplifiers so that the whole world would know about it, literally, and so that the message that the gringos are “getting closer” to Venezuelans would travel quickly from the West to the East.
The message of the meeting in Miraflores reached Russia in real time, a country to which the White House has intensified the economic war in the framework of the conflict in Ukraine, initially provoked by the hostile attitude of the gringos through its armed wing, NATO, and with the support of the always genuflecting Europe. It has applied unilateral and therefore illegal coercive measures, has excluded it from the SWIFT financial system of the Federal Reserve, has tried to isolate it from the international community and has blocked it from the media. Actions that, among other things, have generated not only the Kremlin’s response but also a serious energy and trade crisis that is having repercussions in all corners of the planet.
Russia is the second largest oil producer in the world. Of the nearly 70 million barrels per day of crude oil produced in 2020,
– Russia produced 9.5 million;
– The US produced 11.2 million of the 18.4 million it consumes;
– Europe produced 3 million of the 13 million it consumes.
– China produced 3.8 million of the 13.1 million it demands per day.
– The US imports 5.8 million barrels of crude oil per day, 31% of what it consumes,
– Europe imports 10.4 million (80% of consumption); China 10.8 million (82%).
– Russia does not import crude but exports 4.6 million barrels per day (OPEC data).
However, Russia’s main trading partner is not the USA, it is not the main supplier of fuel. Russia’s total exports (oil and non-oil) account for 13% of Russia’s exports to China.
13% to China,
10.5% to the Netherlands,
6.57% to Germany,
5.09% to Belarus,
4.9% to Turkey (WITS data).
However, one of the US concerns, besides the need to send an eventual message of rapprochement with Venezuela to the East, is the inflationary impact that the increase in oil and electricity prices will have as a consequence of the conflict in Ukraine. Inflation which, being cost-based and caused by a supply shock due to the increase in the price of oil, will also lead to a fall in production, in other words, to stagflation, which is very dangerous for the US and Europe in the context of the discontent that is becoming more and more evident among their peoples.
The photograph of the State Department spokespersons sitting in Miraflores also reached in a matter of milliseconds to China, the main US contender since, in March 2018, this Western country declared a trade war on it.
The US must be at a great disadvantage in this global conflict to have come to Venezuela to “ask” us for a lifeline and in passing send a message to the other side of the world,
– Venezuela has the highest debt in the world (US$30 million dollars) that cannot be honored even if all the gold in the planet is stolen and whose international reserves do not even cover 2% of that debt;
-it has been commercially dependent on China since the 70’s, the main holder of its debt and a country that, even during the pandemic, has not seen its production fall;
– It barely has enough international reserves for 2.1 months of imports, while China has enough for 14.8 months and Russia for 18.6 months (World Bank).
– In the energy field, the US only has 6 years of oil reserves (OPEC) while Russia has enough for 61 years and we have enough for 2,000 years.
– In the military field, Russia has long since surpassed it.
-In technology, China is ahead.
Throwing a lifeline to the US by “supplying” it with oil, but above all by shaking its hand, after all the damage they have unjustifiably done to us, has a very high price, much more than the 300 US$/barrel that some are forecasting. Today the price of our oil for the gringos tends to be infinite.
We Venezuelans are a people of peace, we have always advocated compliance with international law, self-determination of peoples and respectful dialogue for the solution of conflicts, we are against wars, but there are aspects that are invaluable for Venezuelans and that make the price of our oil for the gringos rise, so we refer to our principles that under no circumstances are negotiated:
1) the dignity of not kneeling before those who for almost a decade have declared a criminal and genocidal unconventional war against us without reason or motive;
2) loyalty, non-betrayal and gratitude to those who in very hard times for the Venezuelan people extended their hand to us, several of them are on the other side of the world, in the East;
3) justice, an essential requirement for peace.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation Resumen-English