Venezuela in 2020

Rafael Osío Cabrices and Raúl Stolk at Caracas Chronicle take a look at the political shift in Venezuela throughout 2019. There are two key takeaways:

First, the Maduro government ditched the chavista revolutionary goals, both at home and abroad, in favor of simply staying in power. Just remaining in power is winning. That includes dollarization. They note Russia's gradual takeover of the Venezuela oil industry, and I would add this news story about how Venezuela is actually increasing its oil production as a result.

Second, the international response has shifted mostly to managing refugees. The Trump administration was belligerent in early 2019 and that has evaporated. The strategies of providing exit ramps and convincing the military to force out Maduro failed, and at least publicly are not being replaced with anything else. There is no Plan B.

As always, we have to add the caveat that we don't know what's going on inside the regime. But from the outside, maintaining power in 2020 looks much more favorable than it did in 2019.