In a powerful 2024 address, Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez delivered a scathing critique of US sanctions policy, framing it as a tool of extortion and barbarism that extends beyond economic aggression to the destruction of humanity.
Drawing direct parallels to the genocide in Palestine, she exposed how unilateral coercive measures, euphemistically called “sanctions”, serve speculative capital by exterminating peoples and stealing resources.
Rodríguez emphasized that she’s “never seen the US government arrive in a desert to plant life. They always arrive to destroy,” connecting this pattern to broader hegemonic tactics.
Her speech highlighted Venezuela’s devastating experiences while calling for a new regional financial architecture to counter such vulnerabilities.
Below is a detailed synopsis of her key points, integrating all aspects of the discussion:
Rodríguez describes the SWIFT system as a cornerstone of US dominance in international finance, where all global transactions flow through it (primarily from North America, with minor European ties), enabling the US to exclude any country with the press of a button, underscoring the urgent need for alternative systems to protect sovereignty.
She details how unilateral coercive measures, or sanctions, function as extortion against nations that defy US instructions, with over 26,000 such measures worldwide affecting 31 countries, representing 28% of the global population and 72% of Earth’s territory, and a sharp escalation under presidents Bush, Obama, Trump, and especially Biden, including actions against Russia amid the Ukraine conflict.
96% of these sanctions target just 10 countries, mostly oil and energy producers vital for human development, such as Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Iraq, turning economic policy into a weapon that prioritizes control over essential resources.
In Venezuela’s case, over 930 measures led to the loss of 77% of international correspondent banks “in one second,” causing a 99% drop in national income and halting production of nearly 3.4 billion barrels of oil, equating to $232 billion in lost oil revenue between 2015 and 2023, with total economic damage approaching $700 billion, comparable to the GDP devastation from WWII bombings on Germany and France.
She quotes a 2018 US State Department official admitting that sanctions “forced Venezuela to default... We are seeing total collapse. Our policy works,” alongside a former US ambassador’s call to accelerate the collapse despite acknowledging it would cause prolonged suffering, revealing a deliberate strategy of economic aggression and mass human rights violations.
Rodríguez links sanctions directly to broader destruction, stating the US never arrives to foster life (e.g., planting trees in African deserts) but always to destroy, extending this policy to the “genocide against Palestine” as part of exterminating peoples to ensure the survival of speculative capital.
Asset theft examples include the US seizure of Citgo, the freezing of over $22 billion in Venezuelan liquid assets (including gold held by the Bank of England, withheld under the pretext of not recognizing the government), and the blocking of $5 billion in IMF pandemic relief funds for the same arbitrary reason, warning that no nation’s assets in the US are secure.
She ridicules the 2019 US recognition of a self-proclaimed Venezuelan president (backed by dozens of Western and European countries despite no election), resulting in absurdities like the appointed “president” of Venezuela’s Central Bank living in Miami and running a hamburger business while claiming control over national reserves in a UK court case over stolen gold.
Rodríguez concludes that international law has been supplanted by barbarism in a criminal system of extortion, aggression, and blackmail, where the hegemon overrides sovereign wills through force and maneuvers, making sanctions a central pillar of US foreign policy alongside war, all without regard for humanity.
