Economist Dr Anthony Gonzales, who is a retired director of the Institute of International Relations of the University of the West Indies (UWI) told the Business Guardian that if sanctions are intensified there could be another wave of migration.
“If sanctions hit foreign investment and export markets for oil as well as Venezuela’s capacity to borrow on the international market, they would have a strong negative impact on growth of the economy as well as employment and imports. Once jobs begin to get scarce and basic necessities, such as food and medicine are in short supply migration will resume at the earlier rate. T&T will therefore see an increased flow of Venezuelan migrants under these conditions.”
While the Government of T&T registered 16,500 Venezuelan migrants to work legally in 2019, thousands more live and work in T&T illegally.
On January 30, the US State Department, warned that actions by the Venezuela government, including the arrest of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election, could result in the US not renewing General License 44, which provides relief to Venezuela’s oil and gas sector, when it expires on April 18, 2024.
Criminologist and author Daurius Figueira told the Business Guardian that he does not expect to see a reduction of the Venezuelan migrants coming to T&T or going to other parts of the Latin America any time soon.
Although Venezuelan economy has witnessed modest economic recovery over the last few years, there are fears that new US sanctions could do undo its economic recovery, which could lead to another mass exodus of migrants.
Figueira believes that it is likely that former US President Donald Trump would win this year’s elections and could reimpose the harsh sanctions as he did under his first term.
“The migration will not end as it is being pushed by Colombian transnational organised crime which they are using to support their war with the Mexican transnational trafficking organisations who now control the illicit trades of Venezuela and the Caribbean. A rise in the standard of living in Venezuela will increase the trafficking activity through Venezuela, right now the main target is Brazil.”
He added that illegal migration is linked to international drug cartels.
“The flow of migrants to T&T from Venezuela and the rest of Latin America is a Colombian-organised crime action to serve their interests. They are here to wage war on the Mexican affiliates in T&T. The Colombians lost this war since before 2020 but they persist with backing from T&T state agents. This reality is not going away as the migrants will further collapse T&T’s social order. The illicit trades from Venezuela are booming and there are other source countries being tapped, such as Suriname, Guyana and Brazil.”
Trinidad and Tobago could face a new influx of Venezuelan migrants if the US reintroduces sanctions on the South American country.
Human trafficking and arms smuggling from Venezuela to T&T as well as other regional countries can directly be linked to the collapse of Venezuela’s economy over the last decade.
According to chilling 2023 report in Spanish from the Venezuelan Chapter of Transparency International, a Venezuelan baby can be bought and sold for US$75,000 in T&T and throughout the Caribbean islands.
The report published in September 2023 is entitled “Finding the Link between Illicit Economies and Modern Slavery” described in detail how young Venezuelan women looking for better economic opportunities are sold into sex slavery in T&T, Colombia, Brazil and other regional countries.
INFORMAL ECONOMY
While inflation has been falling and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects economic growth of 4.5 per cent for Venezuela in 2024, the possibility of the US Government reimposing severe sanctions raises the question of how sustainable is this growth and the impact it will have on neighbouring countries like T&T.
Caracas Chronicles, an English-language website that brings economic and other news out of Venezuela published an article dated January 8, 2024 which showed the adverse impact of Venezuela’s economic collapse and its implications, not only for Venezuela, but also on T&T and other regional countries.
The article referred to a 2022 study carried out jointly by the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International and research and consulting firm Ecoanalítica, which shows that illicit activities make up 16.67 per cent or US$9.4 billion of Venezuela’s economy.
The study indicated that the trafficking of gold, rhodium, coltan (all three total $2.1 billion), drugs ($5.1 billion) and fuel ($760 million) as well as port smuggling ($1.3 billion) all make up the underground economy.
According to Asdrúbal Oliveros, director of the Venezuelan economic think tank Ecoanalítica, the share of illicit sectors of the economy in Venezuela has grown since 2016 because of the collapse of Venezuela’s hydrocarbons industry.
“Oil is the main producer of wealth in the country”, he says, “A whole source of political and economic clientelism derived from it and it obviously collapsed, and it had to search for alternative sources.”
The study also examined another profitable illicit economic sector booming in Venezuela: modern slavery, ranging from human trafficking in Sucre for commercial sexual exploitation in the Caribbean to modern slavery in Venezuela’s mining arc.
“We are concerned by how human trafficking has increased”, Mercedes de Freitas, executive director of the Venezuelan Chapter of Transparency International said.
De Freitas criticised the Venezuelan Government for being “silent” on the widespread criminality and illegal activities that are the result of Venezuela’s economic woes.
He explained that all sorts of Government security forces actively participate in gold trafficking in the Orinoco Mining Arc: ranging from the Army and the National Guard, through intelligence agencies DIGECIM and Sebin, to the National Police and both regional and municipal police departments in Venezuela’s Bolívar state.
The Caracas Chronicles article also stated that while the researchers could not estimate its share in the economy, they did find unsettling stories showing its profitability.
“Millions of dollars, for example, for ten underage Venezuelan girls to be exploited by Chinese mobsters in T&T. In the islands, for example, a Venezuelan baby girl can be sold for $75,000, the study found out.”
