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INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC SPECIAL REPORT

An economic, monetary, energy, social, technological, strategic, geopolitical and institutional analysis by CPGNNews: CaribPulse Global News Network

A multilingual international editorial platform born in the Caribbean.

Analysis of the major contemporary economic, monetary, energy, social, technological and geopolitical transformations, their consequences for states, markets, businesses and societies, with a particular perspective from the Caribbean and on the transformations of the international order.

By the CPGNNews Editorial Team | Global Perspective, A View from the Caribbean

August 31^st, 2026

Think the Caribbean. Understand the world.

THE DAY A NATIONAL CURRENCY COULD CEASE TO BE THE CENTER OF SOVEREIGNTY

There are moments in a nation’s economic history when an apparently technical decision in reality reveals a far deeper transformation. Monetary reform can sometimes be much more than a modification of the exchange-rate regime, the reference currency or the instruments used by a central bank. It can reveal a crisis of confidence, a transformation in the relationship between the state and society, a shift in the centers of power and, more profoundly still, the gradual end of a worldview that has become incapable of responding to new realities. The controversy surrounding the future of the bolívar in Venezuela belongs to this category of moments. The question is not merely whether the U.S. dollar could one day officially replace Venezuela’s national currency. The broader question is to understand what it means, for a twenty-first-century state, to eventually have to seek in a foreign currency the stability that its own currency has no longer been able to guarantee.

From the outset of this report, however, it is important to resist the temptation of simplification. Venezuela has not officially abolished the bolívar simply because a dollarization proposal has been put forward or because the use of the dollar has expanded in certain transactions. De facto dollarization does not necessarily constitute institutional dollarization. An economic proposal is not a government decision; a political decision is not yet a reform that has actually been implemented. Between these different stages lie considerable legal, monetary, fiscal, banking and political choices. This distinction will be maintained throughout our analysis because it constitutes one of the fundamental conditions of rigorous international journalism. The subject of this report, therefore, is not the spectacular announcement of a disappearance of the bolívar that has already taken place, but an examination of a possibility whose very formulation reveals the scale of the questions Venezuela is confronting today.

This documentary caution in no way diminishes the significance of the moment. On the contrary, it makes it possible to understand its true implications. When a country that possesses immense energy resources, a long tradition of statehood, a national currency and a political history deeply shaped around sovereignty considers, even through a debate that remains open, placing a foreign currency at the heart of its economic stability, something fundamental is at stake. Currency is never merely an instrument used to buy, sell or save. It is also an expression of collective trust. It represents the ability of a state to guarantee the value of exchanges within its territory and to place economic activity within a relatively predictable horizon. When that confidence deteriorates over a prolonged period, a monetary crisis gradually becomes an institutional crisis, then a social crisis and ultimately a question about the state’s very ability to exercise certain dimensions of its sovereignty.

This is precisely where our reflection begins. What does economic sovereignty still mean in a world where capital, data, technologies, payments, skills and value chains circulate far beyond national borders? The question would have been difficult to imagine in the same terms in the middle of the twentieth century. At that time, economic power was largely understood through territory, natural resources, national industry, currency, trade borders and the state’s ability to directly control the major instruments of production. These elements remain important. They have not disappeared. But they are no longer sufficient to describe contemporary power. An economy may possess substantial natural resources while depending on foreign technologies. It may produce energy while remaining vulnerable to international financial infrastructure. It may possess a national currency while seeing its citizens favor a foreign currency to protect their savings. It may possess a vast territory while losing part of its human capital through migration. It may even exercise full legal sovereignty while remaining dependent on digital networks, payment systems, technological components and platforms that it does not control.

Venezuela stands precisely at the intersection of these contradictions. Its recent history has demonstrated with exceptional intensity how an economy rich in natural resources can remain vulnerable when institutions, monetary policy, public finances, production and collective confidence enter a downward spiral. Oil has long been one of the principal foundations of the country’s economic power, but this wealth has not automatically produced the diversification, productivity, institutional stability and human capital required for a resilient economy. The problem, therefore, is not simply that of a currency that has lost value. It concerns the relationship between resources and institutions, between revenues and investment, between sovereignty and the actual capacity to act.

This question must also be placed within a much broader generational transformation. New generations are growing up in an economic environment in which the boundary between the national and the international is becoming increasingly difficult to draw. They use digital services whose infrastructures may be located across several continents, communicate instantaneously with people living in other countries, conduct transactions in multiple currencies, learn remotely, work for companies that may have no physical presence in their own country and sometimes build their careers across several successive territories. For a growing part of this generation, economic value is no longer necessarily associated with a single national space. Currency itself sometimes becomes one interface among others within a much broader global system of payments, platforms, data and services.

This evolution does not mean that states are becoming irrelevant. On the contrary, it means that they must redefine what they are capable of guaranteeing. Twenty-first-century sovereignty is not disappearing; its substance is changing. It still entails territorial security, legal capacity, control of borders, political legitimacy and the protection of citizens. But it now also entails the capacity to ensure energy continuity, digital resilience, data security, technological education, industrial competitiveness, financial stability and access to international networks. In this new environment, a national currency alone no longer constitutes proof of effective economic sovereignty. A currency may be legally sovereign yet economically fragile. Conversely, the use of a foreign currency may provide valuable stability without resolving a country’s structural dependencies.

That is why the debate over the dollar cannot be separated from the debate over oil. Venezuela would not simply be a country choosing another monetary unit. It would be a major hydrocarbon producer attempting to rebuild an economy whose future trajectory will depend simultaneously on its energy resources, its infrastructure, its relations with the United States, its trade with China and India, its relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries, its investment capacity and its ability to reconnect its diaspora with its national economy. In this context, the dollar would not merely be a currency. It would become an element of a broader system in which energy, trade, finance, sanctions, investment, technology and diplomacy intersect.

The geopolitical dimension is therefore unavoidable. Venezuela operates in a world where the old lines of separation are becoming more complex. The United States remains a major financial, technological and military power; China represents an increasingly important industrial, commercial and financial center; India is developing its own strategy based on its national interests; Russia retains certain strategic capabilities while being deeply affected by the war in Ukraine; Iran seeks to preserve its room for maneuver; Latin American countries are attempting to navigate between several poles; and the Caribbean is exposed to the economic, energy and migratory consequences of these realignments. In this environment, Venezuela can no longer be analyzed as an isolated case. Its monetary future is part of a broader restructuring of power relations.

The true stakes therefore become clearer. If Venezuela were to move toward official dollarization, the question would not merely be which currency would circulate in shops, banks and government institutions. It would be necessary to determine how public expenditure would be financed, how the banking system would operate, how liquidity would be ensured, how much room for maneuver would remain for economic policy, how relations with international markets would be restructured and how the social costs of the transition would be absorbed. A foreign currency can reduce certain sources of instability, but it does not automatically create an effective administration, an independent judiciary, a coherent industrial policy, modern infrastructure or an education system capable of preparing future generations.

This distinction is fundamental because Venezuela could be tempted, like other societies confronted with a prolonged crisis, to seek in a monetary instrument an answer to problems that are in reality institutional. Yet no currency can durably replace confidence in institutions. An economy can change its unit of account without changing its production structures. It can stabilize prices without resolving its skills deficits. It can attract capital without building the infrastructure necessary to transform that capital into productivity. It can possess a stable currency while remaining dependent on technologies it does not control. Dollarization, if it were to occur, should therefore be regarded as a potential instrument of a much broader transformation, not as the transformation itself.

This is also why this report goes beyond the Venezuelan case. Many fragile states or economies dependent on commodities are today confronted with a comparable question, even though institutional responses differ profoundly from one country to another. The world taking shape around artificial intelligence, data, new digital infrastructures, the energy transition, automation, reconfigured value chains and the instantaneous movement of capital requires states to accelerate their capacity to adapt. Institutions designed to address the problems of the last century may continue to function legally while gradually becoming economically inadequate. The risk, therefore, is not merely that of losing a monetary battle. It is that of preserving a model of governance designed for a vanished world while citizens, businesses and new generations are already living in a radically different environment.

We must therefore look at Venezuela through a dual requirement. The first is rigor: not confusing facts with hypotheses, not turning proposals into decisions, not substituting political narratives for data and not reducing a complex reality to a single monetary variable. The second is humanity: never forgetting that behind currency are lives, behind inflation are families, behind migration are personal trajectories, behind the loss of skills are entire generations and behind macroeconomic decisions are citizens who are simply seeking to recover the possibility of building their future.

It is with this dual requirement that CPGNNews approaches this report. We do not want merely to observe a possible transformation of Venezuela’s monetary regime; we want to understand what it reveals about the passage from one era to another. We want to follow, with the passion of a media organization that seeks to bear witness to its time, the way in which a resource-rich yet deeply tested country seeks to rebuild its capacity to act in a world that no longer resembles the one in which its former doctrines were conceived. Venezuela thus offers us an exceptional historical laboratory: that of a state simultaneously confronted with the question of currency, the question of sovereignty, the question of oil, the question of technology and the question of the generation that will have to live with the decisions made today.

The question guiding our investigation will therefore not simply be “Will Venezuela abandon the bolívar?” It will be broader and more demanding: “What becomes of sovereignty when a nation must rethink its currency, its economy, its institutions and its model of power at the very moment when the world is entering a new technological and geopolitical era?” It is to this question, far more than to the sole fate of the bolívar, that this major report is devoted.

THE BOLÍVAR: BIRTH, POWER AND THE EXHAUSTION OF A NATIONAL SYMBOL

To understand why Venezuela can now contemplate reducing the role of its own currency in favor of the U.S. dollar, one must begin long before hyperinflation, long before the contemporary political crisis, and even before the oil era. A national currency never emerges in a vacuum. It is the product of a political history, a state-building project, a territory, a collective memory and a particular conception of power. The bolívar has never been merely a means of paying for goods and services. It accompanied the construction of the Venezuelan Republic, embodied a drive toward economic unification and gave monetary expression to a political sovereignty won during the nineteenth century. Its trajectory therefore also tells the story of Venezuela itself: a country that gradually transformed a fragmented economy into a national economy, then a national economy into an oil power, only to discover that an abundance of natural resources is not enough to guarantee strong institutions, monetary stability or confidence in the future.

The very name of the currency reveals this symbolic dimension. The bolívar derives its name from Simón Bolívar, the central figure of South American independence and a founding figure in Venezuela’s republican imagination. Choosing his name for the national currency was not an administrative detail. It placed the currency within a history of liberation, unification and nation-building. Money thus became one of the ordinary objects through which the state reaffirmed its existence on a daily basis. Every banknote, every coin and every transaction carried, in both the literal and political senses, a representation of the nation. In modern states, monetary symbols often perform this discreet function: they make visible a sovereignty that would otherwise remain abstract. Citizens may never directly encounter the institutions that govern their country, but they encounter their currency every day.

This relationship between money and sovereignty gradually strengthened as the Venezuelan state consolidated. During the nineteenth century, the country remained marked by deep political, territorial and economic divisions. The wars of independence had destroyed part of its productive and commercial structures, while internal conflicts continued to weaken central authority. In such an environment, the existence of a stable and recognized national currency represented more than a technical instrument. It contributed to the creation of a common economic space. Money made it possible to measure, compare, settle and preserve value within a territory where trade had long been fragmented by distance, limited infrastructure and political instability. Yet Venezuela’s monetary construction was far from linear. As in many Latin American countries, the Republic’s early decades were characterized by the coexistence of different currencies, problems surrounding the circulation of banknotes, fiscal difficulties and a strong dependence on external trade conditions. Building a genuine monetary architecture required institutions capable of issuing, controlling and safeguarding the currency. It also required a state credible enough for citizens to accept the currency today with the expectation that it would retain a reasonably predictable value tomorrow.

That last condition is fundamental. A currency does not function simply because a law grants it legal status. It functions because millions of individuals agree to trust it. The legal authority to declare a banknote official currency is not enough to create a store of value. A national currency rests on an implicit contract between the state and society: the state provides an institutional framework; citizens accept the currency as a unit of account and means of payment; businesses use it for contracts and wages; banks transmit it throughout the economy; and the entire system depends on the expectation that its value will not be destroyed by uncontrolled monetary or fiscal policy. Venezuela would gradually enter a situation in which this contract became increasingly fragile.

Before reaching that rupture, however, it is necessary to understand why the national currency became so closely associated with state power. The history of Venezuela in the twentieth century is inseparable from the exploitation of oil. The discovery and subsequent large-scale development of hydrocarbons transformed the economy, public finances, infrastructure, cities and the country’s international position. Oil provided Venezuela with substantial external revenues and gave the state access to resources that would have been difficult to mobilize from a traditional agricultural economy. The country moved from being a relatively peripheral economy to becoming a major energy actor in the Western Hemisphere. This transformation profoundly altered the function of the currency. The bolívar was no longer simply the currency of a national economy under construction. It became the currency of a state benefiting from an exceptional external rent. That rent gave the government considerable capacity to intervene. It could finance infrastructure, social programs, imports, public investment and rapid growth in consumption. During certain periods, the expansion of the oil economy gave Venezuela the appearance of an emerging economic power destined to secure a lasting place among the world’s major developing economies.

It was precisely here that one of the great contradictions of the Venezuelan model emerged. Oil strengthened the state’s financial power while simultaneously creating the conditions for increased dependence on a resource whose price and demand were largely determined by international markets. Venezuela could possess a national currency and a legally sovereign state while remaining heavily dependent on a source of revenue denominated, traded and valued within an international financial system dominated by the dollar. Monetary sovereignty therefore existed within an economic architecture that remained profoundly international. This contradiction was not immediately visible because periods of high oil prices made it possible to finance underlying imbalances. When oil revenues increased, the state could sustain domestic demand, finance imports and preserve a degree of stability. When revenues declined, vulnerabilities became far more visible. Dependence on imports, the relative weakness of certain domestic productive capacities and the difficulty of maintaining public spending without sufficient oil revenues then exposed the structural fragility of the model.

The problem, therefore, was not oil itself. It lay in how oil wealth was, or was not, converted into durable economic capabilities. Natural resources can finance industrialization, productive diversification, universities, rail networks, energy infrastructure and scientific and technological capacity. They can also primarily finance consumption, subsidies, imports and the expansion of a public sector that gradually becomes dependent on the continuation of the rent. In the first case, natural wealth can become an engine of transformation. In the second, it can become a source of vulnerability. Venezuela experienced both dynamics, to varying degrees and at different moments in its history.

The nationalization of the oil industry and the creation of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PDVSA, significantly strengthened the state’s role in the economy. The objective of asserting sovereignty over natural resources reflected an understandable historical logic: a producing country should be able to exercise greater control over the revenues generated by its own resources. In the Latin American context of the twentieth century, this demand also carried a powerful political and intellectual dimension. Economic sovereignty meant that natural resources should no longer be primarily controlled or exploited for the benefit of external interests. This conception of sovereignty played an important role in Venezuela’s political history. It rested on an idea that shaped much of twentieth-century Latin America: a politically independent state could not be genuinely sovereign if it did not control its strategic resources. Oil thus became much more than a commodity. It became an instrument of national dignity, development and international power.

This logic found particularly strong expression under Hugo Chávez. Chávez’s arrival in power in 1999 opened a new phase in Venezuela’s political and economic history. The Bolivarian Revolution called for a profound transformation of institutions, wealth distribution and Venezuela’s place within the international system. The revolution’s very name invoked Bolívar, giving the currency, the political project and national identity an especially powerful symbolic continuity. Oil occupied a central place in this transformation. As hydrocarbon prices rose sharply during the 2000s, the government acquired substantial resources with which to finance social programs, support consumption and strengthen its regional influence. Venezuela became an important actor in Latin American politics, notably through Petrocaribe and other mechanisms of energy cooperation. Oil revenues were no longer used solely to finance the domestic economy. They also became an instrument of diplomacy.

This period deserves to be viewed with sufficient historical distance to avoid two opposing but equally reductive interpretations. The first would be to regard every social policy of that era as nothing more than an illusion financed by oil. The second would be to treat the social gains observed during certain years as proof that the model was structurally sustainable. The reality is more complex. Rising oil revenues did improve certain social indicators and financed significant redistributive policies, but they did not eliminate the country’s fundamental dependence on hydrocarbons. When external conditions turned and internal vulnerabilities deepened, those gains became increasingly difficult to sustain.

The currency stood at the center of this contradiction. An economy heavily dependent on imports requires regular access to foreign exchange. An oil economy obtains much of that foreign exchange through hydrocarbon exports. As long as oil revenues remain sufficiently high and redistribution mechanisms continue to function, the system can maintain a degree of stability. But when oil production declines, prices become unfavorable, infrastructure deteriorates, investment contracts and international sanctions make access to markets more difficult, pressure on reserves and the exchange rate intensifies. Venezuela would gradually enter precisely this zone of tension.

From 2014 onward, the collapse in oil prices sharply reduced the country’s external revenues. This rupture does not, by itself, explain the crisis that followed, but it was a major accelerator. Imbalances accumulated during previous years became more difficult to finance. Oil production itself also began to experience structural difficulties. Governance problems, underinvestment, operational constraints, financial pressures and, later, U.S. sanctions combined to weaken the sector’s capacity to generate the revenues required to sustain the broader economy. The political and economic crisis then deepened under Nicolás Maduro, who succeeded Chávez in 2013. Economic collapse, hyperinflation, shortages and deteriorating social conditions profoundly altered the relationship between the population and the state. The monetary problem was no longer a matter reserved for economists or central-bank officials. It became a daily experience.

When prices change rapidly, wages lose purchasing power, savings accumulated over years depreciate and businesses no longer know at what level to set prices or contracts, currency ceases to be a mere economic instrument. It becomes a source of social anxiety. Trust, normally the invisible foundation of a monetary system, becomes visible precisely because it is disappearing. Venezuela’s hyperinflation represented one of the most extreme manifestations of this rupture. Between 2016 and 2021, the country experienced inflation on an exceptional scale, leading to several monetary changes and destroying much of the real value of incomes denominated in bolívars. The government carried out several currency redenominations, removing zeros in an effort to simplify transactions and restore the functionality of the monetary system. But removing zeros does not restore trust. A nominal reform can make prices easier to read; it cannot, by itself, rebuild the credibility of a currency.

This distinction is fundamental to understanding what happened. A currency can be technically reformed without being economically reconstructed. Banknotes can be replaced, accounting units altered and rules changed. But if economic agents continue to believe that the currency will rapidly lose value, they will seek an alternative. They may purchase goods immediately, convert income into foreign currency, hold real assets or use a foreign currency for transactions that require greater stability. This is how de facto dollarization advanced. It was not the result of a single decision. It developed progressively through individual and commercial behavior. When economic actors lose confidence in one monetary unit, they seek another unit of account. The U.S. dollar possessed an obvious advantage: it was already the world’s principal international currency, widely used in global trade, finance, foreign-exchange reserves and energy transactions. The presence of a large Venezuelan diaspora also facilitated certain flows of foreign currency into the country.

The phenomenon is socially ambiguous. A foreign currency can provide relative stability to people who have access to dollar-denominated income or activities capable of charging in dollars. At the same time, it can widen the gap between those individuals and households whose incomes remain primarily denominated in the national currency. De facto dollarization can therefore reduce certain macroeconomic risks while creating or reinforcing social divisions. This dimension is essential. It would be intellectually insufficient to present dollarization solely as a technical solution. A currency does not affect all citizens in the same way. Those who possess assets, external income, employment in internationally oriented sectors or links to the diaspora generally have greater capacity to protect themselves against monetary instability. Those who depend exclusively on domestic income are more exposed to the loss of purchasing power. The Venezuelan debate must therefore be examined both as a debate about stability and as a debate about distribution.

This reality also explains why the question of the bolívar remains politically sensitive. For some, the currency represents one of the last visible attributes of a deeply asserted national sovereignty. For others, it has become a source of instability that must be overcome. These two perceptions can coexist within the same society. An individual may remain symbolically attached to the bolívar while preferring to be paid in dollars. An entrepreneur may defend national sovereignty while denominating contracts in foreign currency. A government may maintain a national currency as the official unit while progressively recognizing another currency’s role within the economy. It is precisely this contradiction that makes the Venezuelan case particularly instructive.

Monetary sovereignty has a legal dimension. The state retains the authority to issue its currency and determine the monetary framework. But it also has an economic dimension. The state must be capable of making that currency accepted as a means of payment, a store of value and a unit of account. Finally, it has a strategic dimension: a national currency gives the state certain economic-policy instruments, but those instruments are valuable only when the economy and institutions possess the credibility required to use them effectively. A weak national currency can therefore remain legally sovereign while being economically vulnerable. Conversely, a foreign currency can reduce certain monetary-policy instruments while providing the stability sought by citizens and businesses.

This paradox forces us to move beyond an overly simple conception of sovereignty. Possessing one’s own currency is not necessarily synonymous with power. Not possessing one’s own currency is not necessarily synonymous with powerlessness. The real question is which capabilities the state retains, which it relinquishes and which it is able to rebuild. This distinction will become even more important when we examine the dollarization proposal associated with Steve Hanke and Antonio Ecarri. The emerging choice should not be presented as a confrontation between patriots and foreign-oriented actors, nor as a simplistic opposition between independence and dependence. It must instead be assessed through its real consequences for price stability, public finances, the banking system, credit, competitiveness, investment, wages, inequality and the state’s ability to absorb shocks.

We must also ask a question that is rarely addressed with sufficient precision: what remains of monetary sovereignty when a national currency is no longer fully capable of performing the economic functions that justify its existence? Venezuela offers an extreme case, but it is not a case without lessons for the rest of the world. Several economies have adopted the dollar or made extensive use of a foreign currency in response to monetary crises. Some have achieved significant stability. Others have retained structural vulnerabilities. Dollarization therefore does not produce a universal outcome. It changes the framework within which economic problems must be addressed.

That is why the real issue is not whether the dollar is intrinsically superior to the bolívar. It is to understand why a society comes to prefer a foreign currency to its own, and then determine whether that preference can be transformed into a sustainable economic policy. The answer brings us back to oil. For decades, Venezuela benefited from a resource that provided foreign exchange and financed its economic model. The historical paradox is striking: a country possessing enormous oil wealth finds itself confronting a question of monetary availability and confidence in its own currency. This contradiction cannot be resolved through monetary policy alone. It reaches into the productive structure, the governance of PDVSA, the quality of infrastructure, investment capacity, relations with international markets and the country’s position within emerging global value chains. In other words, the problem of the bolívar is also the problem of the economy that lies behind the bolívar.

A strong currency cannot rest indefinitely on an economy incapable of producing enough, exporting in a diversified manner, attracting productive investment and maintaining credible institutions. Conversely, an economy with a dynamic productive sector can sometimes withstand substantial monetary pressures without entering a comparable crisis. Currency therefore reflects part of the deeper structure of society.

The bolívar thus tells the story of a state that experienced nation-building, oil expansion, the assertion of economic sovereignty, the redistribution of resource rents and, ultimately, a crisis of confidence. Its possible decline should not be interpreted as a merely technical disappearance. It could symbolize the exhaustion of a particular conception of sovereignty, one that naturally associates national independence with the possession of formal state instruments. Yet such a conclusion would still be premature. If Venezuela were to officially adopt the dollar tomorrow, the essential question would not simply be what it would give up. It would also be necessary to ask what it could gain, what it could rebuild and, above all, what it would remain unable to resolve through monetary reform alone.

• A currency can stabilize prices, but it cannot create an industrial base.
• A currency can restore a unit of account, but it cannot train engineers.
• A currency can reduce the risk of depreciation, but it cannot repair a refinery.
• A currency can facilitate investment, but it cannot guarantee the rule of law.

And no currency, national or foreign, can by itself transform a rent-based economy into a productive one.

Venezuela must therefore decide not only how it wants to pay. It must determine what it wants to be capable of producing, financing, controlling and negotiating in the decades ahead. This distinction will allow us to approach the next stage without falling into the trap of an exclusively monetary reading. Before seriously discussing the possible disappearance of the bolívar, we must understand how a currency can continue to exist legally while gradually losing some of its economic functions.

That is precisely the process we will examine next: the crisis of confidence, hyperinflation and the way in which a currency can begin to die economically long before it disappears legally.

FROM MONETARY CRISIS TO LOSS OF CONFIDENCE: HOW THE BOLÍVAR GRADUALLY CEASED TO BE THE ONLY LANGUAGE OF VALUE

The question of the bolívar cannot be understood simply by looking at its exchange rate. A national currency can lose a substantial part of its value without immediately disappearing from economic life, just as it can continue to circulate legally while citizens and businesses have already begun to prefer other instruments for saving, setting certain prices, concluding contracts, or protecting their income. It is precisely this separation between the legal existence of a currency and its actual economic function that helps explain Venezuela’s trajectory. The bolívar remains the country’s official currency, but its role in the economy has gradually changed under the pressure of several decades of imbalances, political crises, productive contraction, difficulties in accessing foreign currency, and inflation that has profoundly altered economic behavior. Venezuela has therefore reached a point where the national monetary symbol remains institutionally intact while society has progressively developed parallel mechanisms for protecting value and conducting transactions.

This evolution did not suddenly emerge in 2026, when the question of official dollarization returned to the political agenda. It is part of a much older process. Beginning in 2019, the government of Nicolás Maduro increasingly tolerated transactions in foreign currencies after years of strict monetary controls, while the dollar rapidly gained ground in everyday transactions. Reuters described a process of de facto dollarization that was already well advanced, with a significant share of transactions being conducted in dollars in several major cities. This did not mean that the bolívar had ceased to be the official currency; rather, it indicated that an increasing share of Venezuelan society had begun using another monetary unit to address a fundamental problem: preserving the value of what they earned.

The distinction between an official currency and the currency actually preferred by economic agents represents the first major break in Venezuela’s recent monetary history. A currency normally performs three principal functions: it serves as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. As long as these three functions are reasonably well preserved, the question of confidence remains almost invisible. Citizens receive their wages in the national currency because they know they will be able to use that same currency later; businesses set their prices in that unit because they can reasonably anticipate its purchasing power; banks extend credit because contracts can be interpreted over periods long enough to make lending possible. When the value of a currency becomes unstable, these three functions begin to separate. People may continue to receive bolívars because wages and certain obligations remain legally denominated in that currency, while seeking to preserve their savings in another currency. Businesses may accept bolívars for certain transactions while calculating their costs and investments in dollars. The state may continue issuing its currency while private economic actors seek to minimize the amount of time they hold it.

It is this behavioral transformation that gives inflation a significance far deeper than a simple increase in the general price level. When prices rise rapidly, economic actors no longer ask only how much a product costs today; they begin anticipating how much it will cost tomorrow and what tomorrow’s income will be worth compared with what they possess today. This change in expectations transforms everyday decisions. A merchant may hesitate to sell on credit because the future replacement cost of the merchandise is uncertain. A company may postpone an investment because it does not know in which currency it will be able to finance future expenditures. A household that would normally keep part of its income in cash may seek to convert it quickly into goods or foreign currency. The economic system then enters a logic in which the speed at which money changes hands becomes itself an indicator of confidence.

Venezuela experienced this rupture on an exceptional scale. The hyperinflation of the second half of the 2010s destroyed a substantial portion of the real value of incomes and savings denominated in bolívars. In 2021, while the country was still emerging from a period of hyperinflation, the Central Bank introduced a one-million-bolívar banknote that was worth only about 52 U.S. cents at the official exchange rate at the time. Reuters reported annual inflation of 2,665% in January and noted that years of hyperinflation had already led part of the population to use dollars for everyday transactions. The image of that banknote became one of the most powerful symbols of the crisis, not because a very high-denomination banknote is, by itself, proof of economic catastrophe, but because it illustrated the widening gap between the nominal value displayed by the state and the real value recognized by society.

Successive currency redenominations were not enough to reverse this dynamic. Removing zeros can make a currency easier to handle in accounting systems and everyday transactions, but changing the nominal unit does not alter the fundamental determinants of value. If an economy continues to produce too little, if public finances remain fragile, if foreign-exchange reserves are insufficient, and if economic agents anticipate further depreciation, a new monetary unit can quickly encounter the same difficulties as the one it replaced. Nominal reform addresses the visible manifestation of the problem; it does not necessarily rebuild the confidence underlying the currency.

The Venezuelan case is even more complex because the monetary crisis developed within an economy whose principal generator of foreign currency remains tied to hydrocarbons. A country can possess enormous oil reserves and nevertheless face a shortage of dollar liquidity in its day-to-day economy if oil revenues do not circulate sufficiently, if exports are disrupted, if international financial mechanisms are constrained, or if external revenues are not efficiently transformed into imports, investment, and productive activity. This contradiction explains why the mere presence of the dollar in transactions is not enough to resolve Venezuela’s structural difficulties. The dollar may provide a more stable monetary unit than the bolívar; it is not, however, an autonomous source of foreign currency.

This distinction became particularly visible in 2026. In January, Venezuela’s private sector estimated that a fresh inflow of foreign currency generated by oil revenues could help stabilize the foreign-exchange market and prices. Reuters reported at the time that the economy remained largely dollarized despite the continued prevalence of bolívar-denominated incomes, while access to dollars remained critical for companies importing raw materials. Two months later, the situation appeared even clearer: Reuters reported that small and medium-sized businesses were struggling to obtain the dollars needed for imports and that 58% of executives at medium-sized manufacturing companies surveyed by Conindustria considered the shortage of foreign currency an obstacle to production. Some companies were even turning to cryptocurrencies as a workaround for certain international operations.

This reality undermines an overly simple idea that could easily take hold in the public debate: that replacing the bolívar with the dollar would be enough to make Venezuela’s monetary problems disappear. Currency is not a magical source of wealth. It is an infrastructure through which an economy organizes value. If that economy does not produce enough competitive goods and services, if it remains heavily dependent on imports, and if it lacks a reliable flow of foreign currency, adopting a foreign currency will not eliminate these constraints. It will simply make them more visible, because the state will no longer be able to use depreciation of its own currency to absorb certain shocks.

It is precisely at this level that the question of monetary sovereignty becomes more interesting than a simple opposition between independence and dependence. The ability to issue its own currency gives a state certain instruments: it can define monetary policy, influence credit conditions, intervene in the foreign-exchange market and, under certain circumstances, absorb economic shocks through exchange-rate adjustment. But these instruments are genuinely useful only when the institutions using them possess credibility. A sovereign currency can give greater room for maneuver to a well-governed state; it can also amplify a crisis when markets and citizens no longer believe in the government’s monetary or fiscal commitments. Monetary sovereignty is therefore a potential capacity, not an automatic guarantee of power.

Venezuela provides an especially clear example of this distinction. During periods of high inflation, holding bolívars became a costly decision for many households. The preference for the dollar did not necessarily stem from any particular admiration for U.S. economic policy. It was a response to a concrete experience: one monetary unit was rapidly losing purchasing power while another was perceived as more stable. Reuters noted as early as 2019 that the Maduro government itself had come to portray informal dollarization as a kind of pressure valve allowing the economy to function in an environment where the bolívar had lost much of its value. The political paradox was considerable: a government that had long defended a strongly sovereignty-oriented conception of the economy was implicitly acknowledging that a foreign currency could help sustain certain economic activities.

This evolution demonstrates why currency must be analyzed as a social institution before being treated as a purely technical instrument. Citizens do not choose a currency simply because an economist explains that it possesses one theoretical property or another. They tend to choose the instrument they believe is most capable of preserving their labor, savings, and exchanges. Once that preference becomes sufficiently widespread, it begins to reshape the economy itself. Prices start being expressed in several units. Wages may be negotiated with reference to a foreign currency. Rents, vehicles, certain services, or imported goods may be valued in dollars even when final payment is made in bolívars. A competing currency then enters the economy not through decree, but through the cumulative effect of individual decisions.

The phenomenon also has a social dimension that strictly macroeconomic debates often underestimate. De facto dollarization does not protect all citizens in the same way. Those with foreign-currency income, family transfers from abroad, internationally oriented activities, or assets capable of preserving their value can generally absorb depreciation more effectively. Workers whose incomes remain primarily denominated in bolívars are more exposed. Currency therefore becomes an additional factor of social differentiation. The Venezuelan experience demonstrated this forcefully: even people with access to dollars can see their purchasing power decline when inflation rises sharply, while those who depend almost exclusively on bolívars face a double pressure from depreciation and rising prices. Reuters reported in 2023 that households receiving dollar income were still struggling to afford food and medicine, demonstrating that dollarization does not eliminate poverty and does not automatically protect people from inflation.

This observation must be placed at the center of any serious analysis of a proposal for official dollarization. Monetary reform can alter exchange-rate risk and stabilize certain expectations without necessarily improving household real incomes immediately. If productivity remains low, wages are insufficient, and essential goods remain expensive, denominating prices in dollars does not mechanically transform living standards. A currency can change the unit in which poverty is measured without eliminating poverty itself. It can make prices more predictable without necessarily making them affordable.

This is also why nominal stability must be distinguished from prosperity. An economy can have a relatively stable currency while remaining poor, unproductive, and heavily dependent on the outside world. It can also have an unstable currency while possessing considerable natural resources. Venezuela has experienced the latter situation with exceptional intensity. Its enormous potential wealth in hydrocarbons did not prevent the deterioration of its monetary system. The strategic question, therefore, is not merely how to stabilize the price of the currency, but how to rebuild the productive capacities that give a national currency a sustainable economic foundation.

That reconstruction is particularly difficult because the monetary crisis itself has contributed to weakening productive capacity. A company that does not know at what price it will be able to import tomorrow may hesitate to invest today. A company that cannot regularly access foreign currency may reduce production. A company forced to raise prices to compensate for higher input costs risks losing some of its customers. Households whose purchasing power is declining reduce consumption. Banks become more cautious. Investment contracts. The economy produces less and becomes more dependent on imports. That dependence, in turn, increases demand for foreign currency, reinforcing pressure on the foreign-exchange market.

The difficulties reported by Venezuelan businesses in 2026 illustrate precisely this mechanism. Reuters reported in March that foreign-exchange auctions conducted between mid-January and early March had distributed approximately $1.3 billion, 13% less than during the same period in 2025, according to calculations by local analysts cited by the agency. Several medium-sized companies said they were excluded from, or insufficiently served by, these mechanisms, while access to the informal market increased their costs. This phenomenon is crucial to understanding why monetary stability cannot be separated from the productive question. When businesses cannot obtain the foreign currency needed to import their inputs, the shortage of dollars becomes an industrial constraint.

The problem then takes on an almost paradoxical dimension: Venezuela faces a shortage of dollars in an economy that already makes extensive use of the dollar. This situation reveals that de facto dollarization has never constituted an alternative form of economic sovereignty. It has simply addressed part of the monetary problem. The country needs dollars because it uses dollars, but it must produce or obtain those dollars through exports, investment, transfers, and integration into the international financial system. If external flows decline, the foreign currency itself becomes scarce.

This is where oil once again assumes its full importance. The stability of Venezuela’s monetary system remains deeply connected to the country’s ability to transform its energy resources into regular external revenues. Yet that ability depends on a range of factors that extend far beyond the oil market: the condition of infrastructure, investment, technology, access to markets, relations with Washington, sanctions, institutional quality, legal certainty, and the capacity to attract international partners. Oil can provide the dollars needed for stabilization, but only if the economy is capable of transforming that resource rent into sustainable flows and productive capacity.

The real problem of the bolívar therefore appears in a different light. Its weakness is not merely that of a monetary instrument battered by inflation. It reveals an economy whose productive, institutional, and financial foundations have not been sufficiently strengthened to transform immense natural wealth into lasting stability. The bolívar has suffered the consequences of this fragility because a national currency cannot remain durably strong when the economy supporting it lacks credibility, diversification, and productive capacity.

This conclusion should not, however, lead to an exclusively economic interpretation. The monetary crisis also has a generational dimension. A population that has experienced repeated episodes of depreciation, inflation, and scarcity learns to change its habits. Generations that lived through the collapse of the bolívar do not have the same relationship with saving in the national currency as those who experienced a period of relative stability. For a young entrepreneur, for example, thinking directly in dollars can become a professional habit rather than an ideological choice. For a family receiving financial support from a relative living abroad, foreign currency can become an ordinary component of the household budget. For a company importing equipment, the dollar can become the natural reference point for replacement costs. Over time, these practices can produce a cultural transformation of the currency itself.

It is this silent transformation that makes the situation particularly significant for the twenty-first century. In the twentieth-century world, national currencies were organized primarily around central banks, banknotes, commercial banks, and economic borders. In the contemporary world, financial flows are increasingly digital, international transfers are faster, businesses can invoice in multiple currencies, and individuals can access financial instruments that extend well beyond traditional monetary systems. Venezuela is not yet a model of this new architecture, but its crisis makes it possible to observe some of its mechanisms in an advanced form: the coexistence of several currencies, the use of digital platforms, recourse to cryptocurrency when traditional channels become difficult to access, and the growing importance of income originating from the diaspora.

The use of cryptocurrency by some Venezuelan companies facing dollar shortages does not mean that digital assets have replaced traditional currencies. Rather, it demonstrates that when financial infrastructures become too difficult to access, economic actors seek alternative channels. This development points toward a broader transformation in how value can circulate. Monetary control will no longer depend solely on a state’s ability to print banknotes or set a policy interest rate. It will also depend on its ability to participate in digital payment infrastructures, maintain access to international financial networks, and understand the new instruments through which capital and payments move.

The question of the bolívar therefore begins to extend beyond Venezuela. It touches on the broader transformation of economic sovereignty. A state can retain a national currency while gradually losing part of its control over the flows that determine its value. Conversely, a state can relinquish certain monetary instruments while seeking to strengthen other dimensions of sovereignty: fiscal capacity, institutional quality, productivity, legal certainty, infrastructure, human capital, and international integration. Sovereignty in the twenty-first century can therefore no longer be measured solely by the number of national instruments a state retains. It must be measured by the real capacities it is able to mobilize.

It is from this perspective that the debate over official dollarization becomes historically more significant. Venezuela is not simply choosing between two banknotes. It faces an institutional dilemma: should it continue defending a national monetary instrument whose credibility has been deeply damaged, or should it accept a stronger external constraint in pursuit of stability that could help gradually rebuild the economy? Under the first scenario, the country retains greater formal autonomy but must demonstrate that it can restore confidence in the bolívar. Under the second, it relinquishes part of its monetary sovereignty but could gain stronger external discipline, provided it possesses the revenues, reserves, institutions, and financial system necessary to make a dollarized economy function sustainably.

Neither trajectory is automatically superior to the other. The answer will depend on the conditions under which the reform is implemented, the credibility of institutions, the level of available reserves, the condition of the banking system, the treatment of public debt, relations with the United States, the evolution of the oil sector, and, above all, Venezuela’s ability to transform monetary stabilization into productive recovery. This is precisely why the question cannot be treated as a simple ideological debate between sovereignty advocates and liberals. The real issue concerns the relationship between autonomy and credibility, between freedom of economic policy and confidence, between national control and international integration.

Recent history already offers an especially important lesson. De facto dollarization was not imposed by Washington; it developed because part of Venezuelan society sought protection against the instability of the bolívar. The phenomenon was subsequently tolerated and gradually accepted by the authorities because it allowed certain economic activities to continue operating. This means that the current debate over official dollarization does not begin with an economy exclusively denominated in bolívars that would suddenly be asked to change currencies. It begins with an economy in which several monetary systems already coexist, with very different consequences for different social groups and sectors of activity.

The real institutional leap would therefore consist of transforming this informal reality into a legal, organized, and coherent regime. Such a transition would not be neutral. It would require answers to questions far more difficult than the issue of the national symbol itself: How would contracts and debts be converted? What would happen to the central bank’s reserves? What would become of the monetary authority? How would banking-system liquidity be guaranteed? How would the state finance its deficits without the ability to issue its own currency? How would it absorb a sudden fall in oil revenues? What role, if any, would the bolívar retain? How would workers whose incomes could not be adjusted immediately be protected? And, above all, which institutions would assume the functions that the national currency had previously helped the state perform?

These questions demonstrate why official dollarization cannot be regarded as the conclusion of the monetary crisis. It would instead mark the beginning of a new economic architecture. Venezuela could gain nominal stability while losing part of its adjustment instruments; it could improve certain expectations while increasing its dependence on dollar flows; it could attract some investors while exposing its economy more directly to international liquidity cycles. The outcome would therefore depend less on the name printed on banknotes than on the quality of the institutional framework constructed around the currency.

The bolívar is therefore not simply losing a battle against the dollar. It is confronting a deeper transformation of Venezuela’s economic system. Its difficulty in preserving value is only the monetary manifestation of a broader problem: how to rebuild an economy in which citizens can once again plan, save, invest, and work without having to constantly protect themselves against the collapse of the unit in which their labor is paid. Until that question is resolved, the monetary debate will remain incomplete, regardless of the institutional decision ultimately adopted.

The proposal for dollarization therefore emerges at a historic moment in which Venezuela must simultaneously rebuild domestic confidence, restore external financial relationships, increase productive capacity, attract investment, modernize infrastructure, and rethink its place in new global value chains. The monetary choice can accompany this transformation, but it cannot replace it. The real rupture of the twenty-first century will not lie in the transition from the bolívar to the dollar; it will lie in Venezuela’s ability to move from an economy primarily seeking to survive to one capable of producing, innovating, investing, and negotiating within a profoundly transformed international system.

This is precisely the limitation that leads us to the next stage of our analysis. Before determining whether the dollar could officially become Venezuela’s currency, we must understand what such a decision would mean for the state itself: its central bank, its public finances, its banking system, its ability to respond to crises, and, more broadly, its conception of sovereignty. The monetary debate then ceases to be a question of exchange rates and becomes a question of power. That transformation will be examined in the next Part.

THE END OF THE BOLÍVAR OR THE RECONFIGURATION OF THE STATE: WHAT DOLLARIZATION WOULD REALLY CHANGE

The debate over abandoning the bolívar becomes truly historical when it is no longer presented as a purely technical response to inflation. The proposal currently associated with economist Steve Hanke, who is working with lawmaker Antonio Ecarri on a bill for full dollarization, would go far beyond simply allowing more transactions in dollars in an economy where such practices already exist. According to information published on August 20 and 22, 2026, by Fortune and republished by Yahoo Finance, the proposal under consideration would entail the full adoption of the U.S. dollar, the disappearance of the bolívar, and the abolition of the Central Bank of Venezuela. Hanke argues that current conditions are sufficiently different from those of the 1990s to make such a solution conceivable, while available reporting indicates that the political likelihood of adoption remains uncertain. It is therefore essential to distinguish carefully between an established fact, namely the existence of a proposal and a now-public institutional debate, and the final decision, which has not yet been made.

This distinction is essential to avoid a common error in the analysis of major monetary ruptures: confusing the announcement of a political direction with the existence of a new economic regime. Venezuela is not yet officially dollarized in the sense that the dollar has replaced the bolívar as the country’s sole legal currency and the central bank has ceased to exist. At this stage, the country remains one in which de facto dollarization is already significant enough to alter economic behavior, while the institutional architecture continues to be based on the existence of a national currency and a central bank. The proposal now under discussion is precisely intended to transform this hybrid situation into a formal monetary regime. That is why the issue extends far beyond a change of banknotes: it concerns the state’s ability to create money, conduct monetary policy, finance its deficits, act as lender of last resort and, at an even deeper level, define the instruments through which it exercises economic sovereignty.

The first consequence of full dollarization would therefore be the disappearance of an instrument that for decades has represented one of the most visible attributes of Venezuelan sovereignty. A central bank may be poorly managed, lose credibility or come under political pressure, but its existence means that the state theoretically retains an autonomous capacity to intervene in liquidity, interest rates, reserves and the payment system. Abolishing that institution would amount to voluntarily accepting that Venezuela’s monetary policy would be largely determined by an external institution, the U.S. Federal Reserve, whose mandate responds to the economic conditions of the United States rather than to the specific needs of Caracas. Such a decision would constitute a major transfer of monetary sovereignty, but it would be too simplistic to interpret it as a pure loss of sovereignty. In return, the government could obtain an extremely strong institutional constraint against monetary financing of deficits, which is precisely one of the central arguments advanced by the proponents of dollarization.

The paradox lies here: what may appear to be a reduction in formal sovereignty can also be presented as an attempt to restore a form of real economic sovereignty. A national currency provides genuine autonomy only when it inspires enough confidence to be used as a store of value, unit of account and means of settlement. When that confidence disappears, the state retains the legal power to issue its currency, but part of society begins to seek protection mechanisms outside it. Monetary sovereignty then becomes more theoretical than practical. The dollarization proposal starts from this contradiction to argue that it may be preferable to explicitly relinquish a monetary power that has become unreliable rather than formally preserve that power at the cost of chronic inflation and permanent instability. The question, therefore, is not simply how much sovereignty Venezuela would surrender, but how much monetary sovereignty it actually exercises today.

That argument must nevertheless be confronted with a major difficulty: a central bank does not merely create money. It also plays a role in maintaining financial-system stability. During a banking crisis, for example, financial institutions may face massive deposit withdrawals even when their assets remain solvent over the medium term. A central bank can then provide temporary liquidity to prevent a liquidity problem from becoming a systemic crisis. In a fully dollarized economy, this function becomes much more difficult because the state cannot freely create the dollars needed to support banks. It must instead have sufficient reserves, credible access to external financing facilities or a banking system designed to operate with much stricter liquidity requirements. Dollarization can therefore reduce certain monetary risks while increasing the importance of banking discipline and reserve management.

This issue is particularly important for Venezuela because the economy must simultaneously rebuild its financial system, restore credit and rebuild confidence in its institutions. An economy emerging from a prolonged period of inflation and productive contraction cannot simply move from one currency to another without addressing the accumulated problems on the balance sheets of banks, businesses, the state and households. Existing debts must be converted or restructured, contracts must be clarified, deposits must be protected and financial institutions must operate under sufficiently strong rules to prevent dollarization from turning a monetary crisis into a banking crisis. Stability in the new currency therefore does not, by itself, guarantee stability in the financial system.

The second major change would concern public finances directly. This is probably the most powerful argument in favor of Hanke’s proposal, but also one of the most demanding to implement. As long as a state has a national currency, it possesses the ability to finance part of its expenditure indirectly through money creation. This possibility can be useful under exceptional circumstances, but it becomes dangerous when public deficits are structural and the central bank is used to finance them. The IMF reported in January 2026 that Venezuela’s imbalances and vulnerabilities had re-emerged since late 2024, notably as a result of declining oil revenues, a widening fiscal deficit, increased reliance on monetary financing and a shortage of dollar liquidity. The Fund estimated public debt at approximately 180% of GDP, even before accounting for certain judgments and arbitration awards, and noted that much of the debt was in default.

In this context, eliminating the possibility of financing public expenditure through monetary issuance would have an extremely powerful disciplinary effect. The state would have to finance its spending through tax revenues, oil revenues, possible privatizations, borrowing in financial markets or international assistance and financing. It would no longer be able to respond to a deficit simply by creating more national currency. This constraint could help restore fiscal credibility if accompanied by serious tax reform and a realistic debt restructuring. But it could also become extremely painful if the government adopted dollarization without sufficient revenues and reserves. Monetary discipline does not replace fiscal discipline; it imposes it.

This distinction is fundamental. Successful dollarization is not simply a restrictive monetary policy. It is a new fiscal contract between the state and society. By abandoning its currency, the state implicitly accepts that it can no longer use inflation as a financing instrument. It must therefore build a tax administration capable of collecting revenue, reduce inefficient expenditure, control state-owned enterprises, modernize customs systems, improve budget transparency and gradually restore access to international financing. A change of currency can make such discipline unavoidable, but it cannot carry it out in place of institutions.

The third major change would directly concern oil, which remains at the center of Venezuela’s capacity to generate foreign currency. In a dollarized economy, oil revenues acquire even greater importance because the state would no longer have a national currency that it could devalue to absorb part of an external shock. If oil prices were to fall sharply, production were to decline or exports were disrupted, the government could not simply compensate through domestic monetary expansion. Adjustment would have to occur through public spending, reserves, external borrowing, wages, imports and prices. This rigidity can be painful, but it can also force the country to confront a problem it has postponed for decades: the need to diversify its economy.

Oil dependence would therefore not disappear with the dollar. It could even become more visible. Venezuela would have a more stable currency while remaining confronted with the fundamental question of how to finance its imports, investments and public expenditure sustainably. Dollarization would not produce the dollars the economy needs; it would require the country to earn them, attract them or borrow them. The oil sector would thus become one of the principal sources of external liquidity, while foreign direct investment, non-oil exports, diaspora transfers and the gradual return of the international financial system would also become essential.

This constraint can be viewed as a weakness, but it can also function as a mechanism for transformation. For decades, the Venezuelan economy has been structured around an exceptional oil rent that enabled the state to finance substantial expenditure without building sufficiently robust productive diversification. Dollarization would not solve this problem, but it could reduce the ability to conceal certain weaknesses through monetary creation. If the country wants to maintain public spending, finance infrastructure, support public services and rebuild its social system, it will need real revenues and real foreign currency. Moving to the dollar could therefore make more visible an economic reality that inflation sometimes allowed to remain obscured.

This dimension becomes particularly important in the context of Venezuela’s renewed international engagement. In April 2026, the International Monetary Fund announced the resumption of its dealings with the Venezuelan government under interim President Delcy Rodríguez, after relations had been interrupted since March 2019 over questions surrounding government recognition. This resumption does not mean that Venezuela automatically has access to an IMF financial program or immediate access to all of the Fund’s mechanisms, but it represents a major institutional break because it reopens the path toward a normal relationship with the multilateral financial architecture. In July, the IMF also indicated that Venezuela had approximately $350 million in its reserve-tranche position and around $4.5 billion in Special Drawing Rights, resources that could become particularly important in a context of reconstruction and liquidity needs.

This international reopening could significantly alter the economic calculation surrounding dollarization. An economy that abandons its national currency without credible access to external financing faces a far greater risk than an economy capable of progressively mobilizing international resources. The credibility of any transition would therefore depend not only on domestic reform but also on Venezuela’s ability to rebuild relations with the IMF, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, private investors and trading partners. The move to the dollar would then be less an isolated operation than one component of a much broader process of financial reintegration.

There is, however, a temptation that must be resisted: presenting dollarization as a shortcut that would allow Venezuela to return immediately to international normality. The country carries substantial public debt, years of defaults, international litigation, deteriorated infrastructure, a weakened productive system and a profound social crisis. The IMF still considered the economy and humanitarian situation extremely fragile in February 2026, with triple-digit inflation, sharp currency depreciation and public debt estimated at approximately 180% of GDP in 2024, before certain judgments and arbitration awards. According to the Fund, around eight million people had left the country since 2014, giving reconstruction a demographic and human dimension that goes far beyond monetary indicators.

A stable currency can facilitate reconstruction; it cannot replace the people who have left the country, the infrastructure that must be rebuilt or the institutions that must regain credibility. This is why one of the most important challenges facing Venezuela’s future economic policy may be its ability to transform the return of the diaspora into human, financial and entrepreneurial capital. The millions of Venezuelans living abroad represent a potentially substantial source of skills, commercial networks, remittances and investment. A credible monetary reform could make their investment decisions more predictable, but only if it were embedded in a legal environment capable of protecting contracts and capital.

The question of confidence returns here in another form. Currency is an institution, but the monetary institution can remain credible over time only if the other institutions are credible as well. An investor does not decide to place capital in a country simply because inflation is low. The investor examines legal security, property rights, taxation, the justice system, infrastructure, electricity availability, political stability, the ability to repatriate profits and the government’s capacity to honor its commitments. Dollarization can reduce exchange-rate risk, but it does not eliminate institutional risk. It may make a country more financially legible without automatically making it more politically reliable.

This distinction is essential to understanding why the possible disappearance of the bolívar would not mean the disappearance of Venezuelan economic policy. Even without a national central bank, the state would retain considerable instruments: taxation, public expenditure, banking regulation, trade policy, energy policy, industrial policy, infrastructure, education, health, labor law, competition policy and international relations. Economic sovereignty would not disappear; its composition would change. The government would lose a powerful but potentially dangerous instrument, monetary creation, and would have to strengthen the real instruments that determine productivity and the state’s capacity to act.

This is where the issue becomes deeply connected to the transformations of the twenty-first century. For much of the twentieth century, a state’s economic power was closely associated with its ability to control its territory, currency, trade borders and natural resources. Today, these dimensions remain important, but they are supplemented by other forms of power: control of data, command of digital infrastructure, access to international financial networks, technological capacity, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, supply chains, control of standards and the ability to attract human capital. A nation may possess its own currency and remain heavily dependent on foreign technologies; it may relinquish its currency while simultaneously strengthening other dimensions of its economic power.

Venezuela therefore faces a choice that goes far beyond the traditional opposition between sovereignty and dependence. The real challenge is to determine which forms of sovereignty are genuinely useful in a global economy where capital, technology, data, payments and value chains cross borders at unprecedented speed. Maintaining a national currency can be a powerful symbolic attribute, but that attribute has strategic value only if it rests on an economy capable of producing enough, innovating, exporting and financing its own needs. Conversely, using a foreign currency can reduce certain economic-policy instruments while allowing an economy to benefit immediately from a more stable international unit of account.

The eventual decision concerning the bolívar would therefore also be a decision about the conception of the Venezuelan state. For decades, Latin American debates have often opposed two visions: one of a sovereign state controlling its resources, currency and economic policies, and another of an economy more open to international markets, foreign capital and the rules of global finance. The twenty-first century makes this opposition increasingly insufficient. States must now be capable of negotiating with technology companies, digital platforms, financial institutions, investment funds, energy powers and international organizations that sometimes command resources greater than those of many governments. The central question is no longer simply whether the state controls everything; it is whether it possesses the skills, institutions and alliances necessary to avoid being overwhelmed by transformations imposed upon it.

From this perspective, the dollarization project can be read as a symptom of a broader crisis in the model of sovereignty inherited from the twentieth century. It would be excessive to claim that abandoning the bolívar alone would signal the end of an ideological era, but it would constitute a particularly powerful signal: a state long attached to a strong political and symbolic conception of its currency could decide that part of this formal sovereignty must be sacrificed in order to rebuild a more tangible form of economic stability. The historical significance of such a decision would therefore lie not only in replacing the bolívar with the dollar, but in implicitly recognizing that some of the political categories inherited from the previous century are no longer sufficient to address the economic, technological and generational constraints of the twenty-first century.

This rupture deserves to be studied without caricature. It would not mean declaring economic nationalism obsolete, nor would it mean that financial openness automatically constitutes modernization. The twenty-first century has not abolished sovereignty; it has made it more complex. States continue to defend their resources, borders, industries and strategic interests, but they must now do so in an environment where power is also shifting toward digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, payment networks, data and the ability to control critical technologies. Venezuela’s genuine modernization could therefore not consist simply of replacing a national currency with a foreign one. It would have to consist of transforming this potential monetary rupture into a much broader program of institutional, productive, technological and human reconstruction.

That is precisely what makes the present moment so important. The project associated with Steve Hanke is not merely proposing an answer to inflation; it implicitly raises a much broader question: What kind of sovereignty does Venezuela want to exercise in the twenty-first century, with which instruments, on what productive foundation and within what international system? The answer will determine far more of the country’s future than the symbol printed on its banknotes. The dollar could stabilize the unit of account, but only the reconstruction of institutions, production, human capital and trust could provide lasting stability for the nation.

Venezuela therefore finds itself in a paradoxical situation. It could be called upon to abandon one of the most visible symbols of its monetary independence precisely at the moment when it is seeking to rebuild its economic autonomy. Yet the contradiction is only apparent if we distinguish formal independence from real capacity to act. A national currency that rapidly loses value, a central bank unable to anchor expectations and a state forced to depend on volatile oil revenues do not necessarily constitute strong economic sovereignty. Conversely, a state that relinquishes monetary issuance but rebuilds an effective tax administration, a sound banking system, a diversified economy, modern infrastructure and new technological capabilities can recover room for maneuver in other areas of power.

This is why the possible disappearance of the bolívar should be regarded as a question of state transformation rather than simply as the disappearance of a currency. The choice now taking shape could alter the relationship between government, central bank, financial system, oil sector, businesses, households and international partners. It could also reshape the way a new generation of Venezuelans understands the relationship between currency, nation and the future. And if that generation were eventually to regard the dollar not as a foreign currency but as one of the ordinary infrastructures of its economy, the rupture would be far deeper than a legal change: it would mark the transition from an economy organized around defending a national monetary instrument to one seeking stability through integration into an international financial architecture.

But this transformation immediately raises a question that dollarization alone cannot answer: What becomes of a state that can no longer use its currency to absorb crises while its economy remains dependent on oil, vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and confronted with an immense social and productive reconstruction? The next part will address precisely this question by examining the winners, the losers, the social risks and the concrete conditions of a monetary transition that could be sustainable only if it protects the population as much as it stabilizes public finances.

DOLLARIZATION AND SOCIETY: WHO WOULD BENEFIT, WHO WOULD BEAR THE COST, AND WHAT TRANSITION FOR VENEZUELA?

The monetary question becomes genuinely political when it leaves the central bank’s tables and enters everyday life. A reform replacing the bolívar with the dollar would not be judged solely by its effect on the exchange rate or inflation; it would be experienced by workers, pensioners, public employees, entrepreneurs, farmers, small merchants, students, families dependent on diaspora transfers and millions of people whose incomes have been profoundly disrupted by the crisis. At this level lies perhaps the principal challenge of potential full dollarization: a currency can be stabilized rapidly in the statistics while producing very different social effects across population groups during the transition. The objective of monetary reform should therefore not simply be to make inflation measured in bolívars disappear, but to enable society gradually to regain the ability to plan its future, preserve part of its income, invest and consume without living under the permanent fear of another depreciation.

The starting context is particularly difficult. In February 2026, the International Monetary Fund estimated that Venezuela remained immersed in a severe and prolonged economic and humanitarian crisis, characterized by triple-digit inflation, rapid currency depreciation, high poverty and inequality, and deteriorating essential services. The Fund also estimated that public debt represented approximately 180 percent of GDP in 2024 before certain judgments and arbitration awards were taken into account, while approximately eight million people had left the country since 2014. These elements mean that a potential monetary reform would not begin in a normal economy that simply needs a more stable currency; it would begin in a society that has already experienced substantial destruction of savings, incomes, economic institutions and part of its human capital.

This situation creates a crucial distinction between the immediate and structural effects of dollarization. In the short term, replacing the bolívar could reduce exchange-rate uncertainty and facilitate price comparisons. In an economy where a significant share of transactions is already conducted or negotiated in dollars, eliminating the conversion risk between the two currencies could also simplify economic exchanges. But this simplification would not mean that prices would immediately become low, that wages would automatically rise or that households would instantly recover the purchasing power lost over previous years. Stability of the unit of account and improvement in living standards are two different phenomena, and any analysis that conflated them would risk turning monetary reform into a social promise it could not deliver.

The first group likely to benefit from monetary stabilization would consist of households and businesses that already receive part of their income in dollars or are particularly exposed to exchange-rate risk. For them, eliminating the bolívar could reduce conversion costs and make economic decisions more predictable. Importing companies could also benefit from greater transparency in price-setting if their costs are already largely determined in dollars. Foreign investors, meanwhile, could view the elimination of national-currency depreciation risk as a favorable factor in their decisions, particularly in a country where monetary uncertainty has long represented a major obstacle to long-term planning. Such a potential improvement would only be sustainable, however, if accompanied by legal and institutional reform allowing capital to enter, operate and exit under predictable conditions.

The second group, far more vulnerable, would be people whose incomes are low, rigid or dependent on the public sector. Their problem would not simply be the currency in which they receive their wages, but the real capacity of those wages to keep pace with the cost of living. If conversion into dollars occurred at an excessively low income level, a stable currency could freeze a condition of poverty rather than resolve it. This is where the experience of other dollarized economies recalls an important reality: monetary stability can eliminate a major source of uncertainty without creating inclusive growth by itself. Ecuador, Panama and El Salvador offer different trajectories precisely because dollarization has produced different outcomes depending on institutional quality, productive structure, fiscal policies and international conditions.

Venezuela should therefore avoid presenting the dollar as a social policy. The dollar can become a more stable monetary infrastructure; it cannot replace wage policy, social protection, healthcare, education or an employment-creation strategy. The central question would be whether the gains from monetary stability can be converted into productivity gains and progressive improvements in real incomes. If that conversion does not occur, dollarization could produce an economy that is nominally more stable but remains profoundly unequal socially.

This question is all the more important because inflation affects households differently according to income. Households with few financial assets are generally much more exposed to rapidly rising prices because a larger share of their resources is immediately devoted to essential needs. In a highly inflationary economy, poorer households also have fewer means of protecting themselves against depreciation. They cannot always purchase assets, hold foreign currency or transfer part of their wealth abroad. Inflation thus becomes a particularly heavy tax on those with the least room for maneuver. Credible monetary stabilization could therefore have a significant positive social effect, provided that the transition does not place its principal cost on the same groups that have already borne the greatest burden of the crisis.

The conversion of wages would be at the center of this transition. In an economy abandoning its national currency after a prolonged period of depreciation, it is not enough simply to divide amounts expressed in bolívars by a conversion rate in order to determine a fair new wage structure. It is also necessary to establish what those incomes actually purchase, how prices will be converted, how employment contracts will be adapted and how pensions will be protected. A purely accounting conversion could create an appearance of stability while leaving extremely weak purchasing power untouched. Reform would therefore need to be accompanied by an income policy capable of preventing monetary stabilization from becoming merely a snapshot of existing poverty.

This issue would be particularly sensitive for pensioners and public employees. When public incomes are already low and the state no longer has the ability to finance spending through monetary issuance, fiscal pressure becomes immediately visible. Full dollarization would therefore require a much more rigorous clarification of public priorities. The state would have to determine which services can be sustainably financed, which expenditures must be reformed, which state-owned enterprises can be restructured, which tax revenues can be mobilized and what share of oil revenues can be devoted to social spending without compromising investment. The currency would merely reveal the fiscal choices that inflation had previously partially concealed.

The informal sector would constitute another major challenge. In an economy where a significant share of the population works outside formal structures, monetary transition cannot be conceived solely through banks and large companies. Small merchants, independent workers and microentrepreneurs need a payment system that is simple, accessible and inexpensive. Successful dollarization would therefore have to be accompanied by modernization of payment infrastructure so that the U.S. currency does not become merely a new unit of account used by groups already integrated into the financial system. Otherwise, the risk would be the creation of a two-speed economy in which formal businesses and households with access to banking services benefit from stability while part of the population remains trapped in a cash-based economy characterized by small payments and irregular incomes.

Physical and digital access to dollars would also be decisive. An officially dollarized economy must have a banking system capable of managing deposits, withdrawals, electronic payments and international transfers. In a country whose infrastructure has been severely degraded, this requirement cannot be considered secondary. A monetary reform that changes the currency without modernizing payment systems could produce a contradiction: a more stable currency circulating through still-fragile infrastructure. Financial reconstruction should therefore be considered a component of monetary reform rather than a later stage.

This dimension is particularly important because the world in which Venezuela is attempting to rebuild is no longer the world of previous major monetary transitions. The circulation of value has become digital. Cross-border payments can be made much more rapidly than before. Companies can operate across several jurisdictions and currencies. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins can, in certain contexts, serve as intermediaries between different financial systems. Digital platforms are also changing relationships among consumers, companies and banks. Venezuela has already begun experimenting with this reality under pressure. Companies facing dollar shortages have turned to alternative digital mechanisms for certain international transactions, showing that the twenty-first-century monetary question is no longer limited to banknotes issued by a central bank.

This development must nevertheless be interpreted cautiously. The existence of digital payment methods does not mean that traditional financial infrastructure is becoming unnecessary. On the contrary, the more digital an economy becomes, the more it needs robust institutional infrastructure to guarantee identity, security, compliance, deposit protection and payment stability. The real challenge for Venezuela would therefore be not simply to replace an unstable currency with a foreign one, but to build a modern financial architecture capable of integrating digital payments, traditional banking, international transfers and new forms of finance without creating new zones of exclusion.

The diaspora would occupy a particularly important place within this architecture. The millions of Venezuelans living abroad already constitute an economic network connecting the country with North America, Europe, Colombia, Chile, Peru and many other economies. Family transfers can support consumption, but their strategic importance extends beyond remittances. The diaspora also represents a reservoir of skills, commercial networks, technological knowledge and potential capital. Monetary stabilization could facilitate the return of some of these resources, but only if political and institutional conditions make such a return credible. Monetary confidence can attract capital; it is not sufficient to attract human capital permanently.

This observation leads to a fundamental point: dollarization should not be conceived as an isolated stabilization policy, but as the first element of a reconstruction contract. If Venezuela decides to abandon the bolívar, it should simultaneously define a strategy designed to transform monetary stability into productive capacity. The country possesses substantial energy resources, but it must also rebuild infrastructure, restore the reliability of its electricity system, modernize ports and roads, restore industrial capacity, develop agriculture, strengthen the services sector and create conditions for new technology companies to emerge. Without such diversification, the dollar risks stabilizing the surface of an economy that would remain vulnerable to its old dependencies.

The oil sector would obviously occupy a central position in this reconstruction, but precisely for that reason it should no longer be considered a sufficient answer. The strategic question would be how to use oil revenues to finance a transformation that progressively reduces dependence on those same revenues. A sustainable model could seek to transform part of the energy rent into infrastructure, human capital, stabilization funds, digital networks and export-oriented industries. Venezuela would then possess a historic opportunity: to use its oil wealth not primarily to finance immediate consumption and deficits, but to rebuild the capabilities that allow the economy to generate revenues independently of oil.

Such a strategy would be particularly important in an international environment where the energy transition, geopolitical tensions and energy-market volatility make oil revenues less predictable. Even if hydrocarbons remain important for many years, their relative weight in the global economy is likely to evolve. Venezuela therefore cannot build its future economic security on the assumption that oil will indefinitely play exactly the same role it played during the twentieth century. Dollarization could reinforce this necessity because the state would no longer have the ability to devalue in order to absorb certain shocks. A dollarized economy must be sufficiently flexible through productivity and diversification to adapt to fluctuations in external revenues.

This is where the generational dimension becomes central. Young Venezuelans entering the labor market in a dollarized economy could have a very different relationship with currency from that of their parents. For them, the question might no longer be whether to defend the bolívar as a national symbol, but whether the economy allows them to obtain productive employment, acquire skills, create businesses, access credit and build a stable life. This evolution could profoundly alter the political meaning of currency. What was once associated with national sovereignty could become, for a new generation, one instrument among many within a much broader global economic architecture.

It is precisely at this level that the Venezuelan debate connects with the civilizational transformation discussed at the beginning of this dossier. Political categories inherited from the twentieth century often placed monetary sovereignty at the center of economic independence. This conception remains historically understandable, particularly in Latin American societies that have experienced foreign intervention, debt crises, imposed exchange-rate regimes and adjustment policies. But the twenty-first century demands a more complex reading. Economic power no longer depends solely on the currency printed by the state. It also depends on the ability to produce technologies, control data, train engineers, develop artificial intelligence, master digital infrastructure, attract capital and participate in global value chains. Sovereignty that does not control these dimensions can remain nominally intact while becoming economically fragile.

Venezuela could therefore face a historic choice that goes beyond the traditional debate between monetary sovereignty and dollarization. It could seek to preserve the bolívar while gradually rebuilding its credibility, or accept the dollar as a stabilizing instrument while concentrating its efforts on the forms of power the country can still develop: energy, agriculture, logistics, industry, technology, data, human capital and geographic positioning. In both cases, the real test would be the same: transforming the country’s resources into durable capabilities. Currency is only one of the means through which that transformation can be organized.

It would nevertheless be dangerous to ignore the political cost of such a transition. The dollar is the currency of the United States, and officially adopting it could be perceived by part of Venezuelan society as an additional form of dependence on Washington. That perception should not be dismissed as irrational. Currency has a symbolic dimension that extends beyond its economic function, particularly in a country where national sovereignty has been at the heart of political discourse for decades. The success of reform would therefore also depend on the ability of its advocates to explain that the objective is not to substitute one national identity for another, but to respond to a crisis of monetary confidence and create the conditions for economic reconstruction.

Such communication would be all the more important because dollarization could be portrayed by opponents as capitulation rather than reform. Such opposition would be politically predictable. Advocates of the proposal would therefore need to demonstrate that the choice of the dollar is accompanied by a much broader national strategy and that abandoning the bolívar does not mean abandoning the state. On the contrary, successful reform would probably require a state that is more competent in the areas where currency can no longer serve as an adjustment mechanism. The disappearance of the central bank could only be credible if compensated by stronger fiscal, financial, statistical and regulatory institutions.

Social protection would then become central. In an economy without a national currency, the state must possess a fiscal system capable of protecting vulnerable populations during shocks. If oil revenues decline, if a natural disaster strikes a region or if international prices of certain products rise sharply, the government cannot rely on currency depreciation to adjust costs. It must use budgetary reserves, redirect expenditure, mobilize external financing or accept reductions in certain spending categories. A credible social policy should therefore be accompanied by a fiscal stabilization mechanism capable of protecting households when external revenues decline.

This constraint could become one of the most serious arguments against excessively rapid dollarization. An economy without sufficient reserves, with a fragile banking system and deeply imbalanced public finances can hardly withstand a poorly prepared transition. The stability of the dollar does not protect a bank against a liquidity crisis, a state against an unsustainable deficit or a family against insufficient income. It simply removes from the national currency the possibility of absorbing some of these problems through depreciation or monetary issuance. Reform must therefore be designed around the economy’s actual capacities rather than around a belief in the automatic virtues of the dollar.

This caution is particularly important because available data simultaneously reveal the depth of the crisis and the existence of recovery potential. IMF projections for 2026 indicate extremely high average inflation, around 387.4 percent, with end-of-period inflation estimated at 219.7 percent, but they also show an economy that retains real growth potential. The Fund estimates real GDP growth at around 4 percent in 2026, reminding us that the Venezuelan economy is not simply an economy in disappearance. It remains an economy with resources, productive capacities and considerable reconstruction potential, but one trapped within exceptionally severe monetary, institutional and financial constraints.

This coexistence of potential and fragility is probably the best starting point for analyzing the future. Venezuela does not need merely a currency operation; it needs a reconstruction of trust among the state, citizens, businesses and international institutions. Dollarization could contribute to this reconstruction by eliminating the risk of bolívar depreciation, but it could also fail if it is not accompanied by fiscal, banking, productive and social reform. The outcome would depend less on the legal decision itself than on the entire set of policies surrounding it.

There is therefore a major difference between dollarizing an economy and building an economy capable of living sustainably with the dollar. The first operation can be accomplished through legislation. The second requires years of institutional work. It requires a modern tax administration, sound commercial banks, reliable payment systems, sustainable social policy, diversified production, functioning infrastructure, a credible legal framework and an investment strategy capable of mobilizing domestic and international capital. Without these elements, dollarization could become a straitjacket rather than an instrument of reconstruction. With them, it could constitute an anchor around which a new economic architecture is progressively built.

The success of such a transformation would also depend on how Venezuela manages its relationship with the United States. The dollar is not merely a unit of account; it is integrated into a global financial system largely structured around American institutions. Access to correspondent banks, capital markets, international payment mechanisms and foreign investment would therefore depend partly on the quality of political and economic relations between Caracas and Washington. Official dollarization could facilitate certain transactions, but it would not automatically guarantee normalized access to international markets. Sanctions, litigation, debt and international legal questions would remain decisive.

This is where geopolitics directly intersects with currency. Venezuela is not choosing its future monetary architecture in a neutral world. It is making that choice within an international system in which the United States still possesses exceptional financial power, China seeks to strengthen its economic position, India is pursuing its own trajectory, the BRICS are seeking to develop partial alternatives to the dollar-dominated financial system, and new digital infrastructures are opening areas of monetary competition. Venezuela’s decision would therefore be observed far beyond Caracas, particularly in Latin America, where several countries are likewise seeking to balance monetary autonomy, financial integration and stability.

The paradox would be striking: at the very moment when part of the world is seeking to reduce dependence on the dollar, Venezuela could choose to officially adopt it in order to restore stability. This contrast should not be interpreted as a simplistic contradiction. Countries do not choose monetary architectures in the abstract; they choose them according to their own institutions, resources, vulnerabilities and power relationships. China can seek to internationalize the renminbi progressively because it possesses a gigantic industrial and technological base; India can retain a national currency because it has an enormous domestic market and a different macroeconomic policy; Venezuela, confronted with a profound monetary crisis, may conclude that the immediate stability offered by the dollar is worth more than preserving a degree of monetary autonomy that has become difficult to exercise effectively.

This comparison points toward an even broader question that must be examined in the next parts: what does monetary power actually mean in a world where the dollar remains dominant while new financial, technological and geopolitical infrastructures are beginning to emerge? The Venezuelan case cannot be understood without this international dimension. The potential abandonment of the bolívar could simultaneously be an internal stabilization decision and a geopolitical event revealing the state of the global monetary system.

Venezuela could therefore become, paradoxically, one of the most interesting laboratories of the new global economy. Not because its experience would necessarily be a model to reproduce, but because it concentrates several transformations likely to shape the coming decades: declining confidence in a national currency, de facto dollarization, the search for new payment infrastructures, dependence on energy revenues, international financial reintegration, the weight of the diaspora, generational transition and the rise of digital technologies. The decision concerning the bolívar could therefore become much more than a national choice. It could offer the world an exceptional window into how a society profoundly marked by the twentieth century attempts to rebuild its place in the economy of the twenty-first.

Ultimately, the real social question will not be whether Venezuelans tomorrow pay in bolívars or dollars. It will be whether their incomes, work, skills and assets can finally recover a stable relationship with the future. A currency is useful because it allows present work to be projected into future time. When that function disappears, society becomes trapped in immediacy. Restoring a currency, or adopting another one, only makes sense if the decision gradually restores the ability to plan. It is this capacity for planning, even more than the change of currency itself, that will constitute the true measure of success for Venezuela’s transformation.

VENEZUELA IN THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF POWER: TRUMP, CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN, THE BRICS AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH

The possible disappearance of the bolívar cannot be understood as a strictly Venezuelan phenomenon. It is taking place at a moment when the international economic order is undergoing a transformation whose contours remain uncertain, but whose effects are already visible across currencies, supply chains, energy, technology, military alliances, investment and payment systems. Venezuela stands at the intersection of several of these transformations. Its oil gives it considerable energy significance; its geographical proximity to the United States confers particular strategic value; its historic relations with Russia, China, Iran and Cuba place it within a political geography that extends beyond Latin America; while the gradual resumption of its relations with international financial institutions could bring it back into an economic architecture dominated by Washington and its allies. The question of the dollar thus becomes an entry point into a much broader inquiry: what kind of world is Venezuela now seeking to rebuild its future in?

The answer requires moving beyond traditional interpretations that mechanically oppose an “American camp” to an “anti Western camp.” This representation increasingly fails to reflect the reality of an international system that has become more transactional, more fragmented and more opportunistic. States continue to form alliances, but they are also seeking to preserve room for maneuver by multiplying their partnerships. India maintains strategic relations with the United States while preserving energy and military ties with Russia. Turkey belongs to NATO while developing economic relations with Russia, China and the Gulf powers. The Gulf countries cooperate with Washington in certain areas while developing massive investments with Beijing. South Korea remains deeply integrated into the American alliance while vigorously defending its own industrial and technological interests. This multiplication of national trajectories constitutes one of the fundamental characteristics of the new geography of power.

Within this environment, Donald Trump’s foreign policy occupies a particular position because it contributes to shifting the traditional boundaries between economics, security and diplomacy. American tariff policy toward China, trade negotiations with allies, pressure on NATO members, attention to strategic resources and the determination to strengthen the balance of power with partners as well as adversaries reflect a conception of power in which trade is no longer regarded simply as a domain separate from national security. Tariffs become an instrument of negotiation, supply chains become instruments of power and markets become arenas of strategic confrontation. Venezuela is directly affected by this evolution because its principal economic asset, oil, is itself an instrument of geopolitics.

This new American approach must be placed within a broader context. Washington’s strategy is no longer limited to containing an identifiable military adversary; it also seeks to reduce certain industrial dependencies, protect critical technologies, reorganize supply chains and use access to the American market as a bargaining lever. China is obviously the principal arena of this economic confrontation, but the logic extends to other sectors and other partners. The world in which Venezuela is seeking to reintegrate is therefore one in which commercial openness no longer necessarily means uniform liberalization. Trade is increasingly filtered through considerations of security, technological sovereignty and strategic resilience.

This evolution is essential to understanding the Venezuelan situation. An economy seeking to attract foreign investment would now have to demonstrate not only its profitability, but also its ability to navigate an environment shaped by sanctions, technological restrictions, export controls and geopolitical rivalries. An investment in the oil sector, for example, no longer depends solely on the price of a barrel and the quality of reserves. It also depends on available technology, relations with the United States, the ability to obtain equipment, the legal structure of contracts and the possibility of securing international payments. Venezuela is thus entering a global economy in which geopolitics has become a permanent variable in economic calculations.

The relationship between Caracas and Washington is consequently one of the determining factors in any reconstruction strategy. During the years of political confrontation, American sanctions profoundly complicated Venezuela’s access to markets, capital and certain technologies. The situation, however, began to evolve within the framework of the political change of 2026 and the gradual resumption of Venezuela’s international relations. In April 2026, the IMF announced the resumption of its relations with the Venezuelan government, following an interruption that had lasted since 2019. This institutional reopening does not mean that all financial obstacles have disappeared, but it represents a sufficiently significant rupture to alter the possibilities for reconstruction.

The question of the dollar must be understood within this new relationship. Officially adopting the U.S. dollar could be interpreted as a signal of deeper integration into the economic architecture dominated by the United States. But it would be too simplistic to regard it as a political alignment with Washington. The dollar could be chosen for essentially economic reasons: stabilizing prices, eliminating exchange rate risk, facilitating transactions and restoring confidence. The distinction between currency and geopolitical alignment would nevertheless remain fragile, because the dollar is also one of the principal infrastructures of American power. Any official dollarization would therefore necessarily place Venezuela in a closer relationship with the American financial system, even if Caracas sought simultaneously to preserve an autonomous foreign policy.

It is precisely this tension between political autonomy and financial integration that could define Venezuela’s new trajectory. The country may wish to maintain relations with China, Russia, Iran and other partners while reintegrating Western financial institutions. Such a strategy would not be impossible. Indeed, it would correspond to the logic of a multipolar world in which states are increasingly seeking to diversify their partnerships rather than belong exclusively to a single sphere. But it would require a much more sophisticated diplomacy. Venezuela would have to learn to manage several systems of norms, several partners and several strategic interests simultaneously without becoming dependent on a single center of power.

China would occupy a particularly important place in this equation. Beijing remains one of the principal actors capable of financing infrastructure, supplying technologies and participating in Venezuela’s industrial reconstruction. Sino Venezuelan relations were strengthened during the years of confrontation with Washington, notably through investment, loans and energy cooperation. But China itself is evolving. Its economy is structurally slowing compared with previous decades, its real estate sector has undergone considerable adjustments, its technology companies are facing American restrictions, and Beijing is seeking to reduce certain external dependencies while strengthening its industrial autonomy.

China therefore cannot simply be regarded as a substitute for the United States. It defends its own interests. Its policy toward Venezuela would be determined by investment profitability, energy security, geopolitical prospects and Caracas’s ability to honor its commitments. Possible dollarization could, moreover, facilitate certain transactions with Chinese companies by reducing exchange rate risk, even as it would simultaneously strengthen the role of the American financial system. Venezuela could therefore find itself in a paradoxical situation in which the same currency facilitates trade with several partners while increasing its institutional dependence on a single financial system.

China also represents a technological issue. If Venezuela wants to rebuild its energy, digital and industrial infrastructure, it will need equipment, networks, telecommunications, data centers, payment systems and production technologies. Beijing possesses significant capabilities in several of these areas. But the integration of Chinese technologies into a country simultaneously seeking closer ties with Western financial institutions could create new tensions. Technological choices are no longer neutral. In telecommunications, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cloud computing and cybersecurity, infrastructure has become directly connected to power relations.

Venezuela must therefore avoid a strategic mistake: replacing an old dependency with a new one. Diversifying partners does not necessarily mean diversifying dependency. A country can have several foreign investors while remaining incapable of developing its own technological capabilities. True sovereignty in the twenty first century increasingly requires mastery of a certain number of critical competencies, even when equipment is imported. Venezuela does not need to produce every component of a modern digital economy by itself, which would be unrealistic, but it must build sufficient national capabilities to understand, manage, secure and adapt imported technologies.

This question becomes particularly urgent when considering the growing role of artificial intelligence. AI is already transforming productivity, financial services, industry, healthcare, education, logistics and defense. Countries with a skilled workforce, robust digital infrastructure and access to computing capacity can rapidly increase their productivity. Countries that remain outside this transformation risk seeing their technological lag widen. Venezuela possesses significant human capital, but a considerable portion of that human capital is now located outside the national territory. Reconstruction will therefore have to incorporate a policy for the return of skills and cooperation with the scientific and technological diaspora.

This dimension reveals another weakness of the Global South. International debates on multipolarity can sometimes create the impression that the creation of new diplomatic groups is sufficient to rebalance the global system. Yet power is not measured solely by the number of countries gathered around a table. It also depends on the capacity to produce technologies, finance innovation, control critical infrastructure and educate the generations capable of using those technologies. In several strategic sectors, the gap between the major technological powers and much of the developing world remains considerable. Artificial intelligence could widen this gap rather than reduce it if investment in education, digital infrastructure and research remains insufficient.

It is within this context that the BRICS question deserves a more nuanced analysis. The group constitutes an important political and economic reality, but it does not form a homogeneous bloc comparable to a military alliance or an integrated economic union. The interests of China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and the new members are not always convergent. Relations among some of these states are themselves marked by rivalries. India and China, for example, maintain significant economic relations while remaining engaged in strategic competition. China and Russia have strengthened their partnership, but their economies, capabilities and interests are not identical. The Gulf countries can participate in the BRICS while maintaining close relations with the United States.

The potential weakness of the BRICS project therefore does not lie in its nonexistence, but in the difficulty of transforming a coalition of powers and emerging countries into a genuine alternative economic architecture. A common currency, an integrated financial market and a payment system capable of competing on a large scale with dollar dominated infrastructures would require considerable institutional convergence. Yet national interests remain extremely strong. The BRICS can promote trade diversification, the use of national currencies and the creation of alternative financial instruments without necessarily producing complete dedollarization of the global system.

The Indian case perfectly illustrates this strategic autonomy. New Delhi is not simply seeking to choose between Washington, Moscow and Beijing. India is attempting to build its own sphere of power. It is developing its industry, investing in the digital economy, seeking to attract international production chains and simultaneously maintaining energy relations with Russia. Its strategy rests less on joining a camp than on maximizing its options. This logic could offer a lesson to Venezuela: strategic diversification does not consist of replacing Washington with Beijing or Moscow, but of building sufficient national capabilities to negotiate with each of them.

South Korea represents another particularly instructive trajectory. Its development demonstrates that an economy can become a global technological power by initially using external alliances while gradually developing its own industrial capabilities. Today, Seoul does not merely participate in global value chains; it possesses companies capable of competing in semiconductors, electronics, automobiles, batteries and other advanced sectors. The real lesson for Venezuela is obviously not to mechanically reproduce the South Korean model, which was built under radically different historical conditions, but to understand that sustainable international integration becomes far more advantageous when a country possesses its own productive and technological capabilities.

This difference is fundamental for the Global South. Economic sovereignty in the twenty first century can no longer rest solely on control of natural resources. Oil, gas, copper, lithium and agricultural land remain important, but their value increasingly depends on the technologies that make it possible to extract, transform and transport them and to integrate them into high value added products. A country rich in resources but poor in technology risks remaining a supplier of raw materials. A country capable of transforming its resources through industrial, digital and scientific expertise can capture a much larger share of global value.

Venezuela therefore possesses a considerable but incomplete advantage. Its energy resources can finance part of the reconstruction, but they can no longer constitute the sole foundation of its national strategy. The country must gradually move from a rentier logic to a capacity based logic. This transition would probably be one of the most important consequences of possible dollarization, because the inability to use monetary issuance as an adjustment mechanism would make the need to produce, export and invest far more visible.

Russia represents another element of this equation. The war in Ukraine has profoundly altered its relationship with the Western financial system, but it has also revealed the limits and costs of prolonged confrontation with the major Western economies. Moscow retains significant energy, military and diplomatic capabilities, but its economy faces structural constraints linked to sanctions, military spending, access to technology and the need to maintain its industrial base. For Venezuela, Russia remains a potential partner in certain areas, but it cannot be regarded as an unlimited source of financing or technology. The war in Ukraine has reduced Moscow’s economic room for maneuver and transformed its strategic priorities.

The relationship with Iran must be analyzed in a comparable manner. Tehran possesses considerable experience in managing an economy subjected to sanctions and has developed alternative mechanisms for trade, payments and cooperation. This experience may be of interest to Caracas, particularly in the energy sector. But Iran itself continues to face significant economic and technological difficulties, compounded by regional tensions and international restrictions. The partnership with Tehran can therefore provide targeted solutions without constituting a comprehensive reconstruction architecture.

Cuba occupies a different position. The evolution of the American approach toward Havana, as well as the internal transformations of the Cuban regime, must be closely monitored because Cuba remains historically linked to Venezuela politically, in security matters and at the human level. But here again, economic reality imposes limits. Cuba does not possess the financial or technological resources necessary to become Venezuela’s principal reconstruction partner. The relationship could therefore gradually evolve from an ideological logic toward a more pragmatic one, based on the concrete needs of both societies and on their ability to maintain useful relations with different partners.

This possible evolution of relations with Cuba is revealing of a broader transformation in Latin America. Latin American societies are less structured by the great ideological oppositions of the twentieth century than they once were. Younger generations are more concerned with employment, education, security, public services, international mobility, digital technology and purchasing power. Governments themselves face growing pressure to deliver concrete results rather than maintain permanent ideological confrontations. This does not mean that political convictions are disappearing, but rather that they are increasingly being confronted with an economic and technological reality that cannot be confined within old categories.

Venezuela could become one of the most spectacular cases of this transition. For years, political debate was structured around an extremely strong opposition between revolutionary sovereignty and American pressure. Possible dollarization would introduce a major symbolic rupture in this logic. But the most important issue would not be the symbol itself. It would be the way in which society interpreted that rupture. If the dollar made it possible to gradually restore stability, facilitate investment, rebuild credit and encourage the return of skills, part of the population might conclude that economic effectiveness matters more than loyalty to a national monetary instrument. If, on the contrary, the reform produced social compression without improving production and incomes, it could be interpreted as a new form of dependency.

The difference between these two scenarios would depend largely on American policy. Venezuelan dollarization could not be separated from Washington’s strategy toward oil, sanctions, investment and the country’s reconstruction. The Trump administration has demonstrated a preference for the direct use of economic and commercial levers in pursuit of its strategic objectives. In this context, Caracas would probably have to negotiate with Washington on several issues simultaneously: energy, sanctions, migration, security, investment, trade and access to financial markets. Currency could become one element of a much broader relationship.

This situation creates both an opportunity and a risk for Venezuela. The opportunity lies in the possibility of once again becoming an important energy actor in the Caribbean and on the American market while attracting international investment. The risk would be to rebuild an economy entirely dependent on a single partner or a single market. The real strategy should therefore consist of using rapprochement with Washington to restore economic capabilities without abandoning the diversification of international relations. China, Europe, India, Brazil, the Gulf countries and Latin American neighbors could all play a role in this diversification.

Brazil could in particular become a particularly important regional partner. Its geographical proximity, economic size and diplomatic influence in Latin America make it a natural actor in Venezuela’s reconstruction. A Venezuelan economic recovery could also benefit the entire region by reducing forced migration flows, increasing trade and stabilizing borders. Venezuela’s reconstruction would therefore not be solely a national matter; it would have direct consequences for Colombia, Brazil, the Caribbean and the United States.

This regional dimension is too often underestimated. A stabilized Venezuelan economy could become a major market for Latin American goods and services. It could also regain significant energy export capacity. Transport infrastructure, ports, electricity networks and trade corridors could be rebuilt from a regional perspective. Venezuela could then gradually move from the status of a geopolitical crisis to that of a regional economic platform. But this transformation would depend on political stability, legal certainty and the ability to restore normal relations with international financial institutions.

The question of technology would then return to the center of the project. If Venezuela wants to fully capitalize on its energy resources and geographical position, it must invest in digital infrastructure capable of supporting a modern economy. This means reliable telecommunications networks, data centers, digital payment systems, strengthened cybersecurity, a digitized public administration and technological education programs. Artificial intelligence could play a role in energy management, logistics, agriculture, healthcare and public administration. But it could also deepen inequalities if access remained concentrated among a few large companies or within a highly skilled minority.

The generational challenge is therefore immense. A new economy cannot be built with the institutions of the past alone. Venezuela will need a generation capable of working in several languages, understanding digital technologies, participating in international value chains and creating companies capable of exporting. The diaspora can provide part of this expertise, but the national education system will also have to be profoundly strengthened. Monetary reform without human capital reform would risk producing financial stability without productive transformation.

This is why the possible decision concerning the bolívar could ultimately become a revealing sign of the end of a particular conception of power. The twentieth century often measured sovereignty by the state’s ability to control its territory, currency, resources and borders. The twenty first century adds other dimensions: computing capacity, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, data, logistics chains, cybersecurity, human capital, intellectual property and access to financial networks. A state that controls its currency but masters none of these dimensions may find itself more vulnerable than a state that accepts certain interdependencies while developing its strategic capabilities.

Venezuela could therefore be one of the first countries to pose this question so radically. By contemplating the abandonment of its national currency, it would not necessarily be choosing between sovereignty and the absence of sovereignty. It could be shifting the center of gravity of its sovereignty. The real question would then be whether the country uses monetary stability to build a new economic power or merely replaces monetary dependency with financial dependency.

This distinction would largely determine the historical significance of the reform. If the dollar became merely a mechanism for stabilizing prices without transforming the productive apparatus, Venezuela would remain vulnerable. If, on the contrary, it became the foundation of a broader program encompassing fiscal reform, debt restructuring, energy reconstruction, industrial diversification, digital modernization, investment in education, the return of the diaspora and regional trade integration, then the decision could take on a much deeper dimension. It could mark not the end of Venezuelan sovereignty, but the transition from an older conception of sovereignty to one adapted to the realities of the twenty first century.

The paradox would then be complete. A country long portrayed as one of the symbols of resistance to the economic order dominated by Washington could choose the American currency precisely to rebuild the material foundations of its future autonomy. This choice would not necessarily mean that ideology had disappeared. Rather, it would mean that economic reality now requires ideology to account for itself. A society that can no longer preserve the value of its savings, guarantee the stability of its wages or finance its infrastructure must necessarily reassess the instruments of its economic model. When generations change, when technologies change and when power relations change, political doctrines must also accept being reexamined.

Perhaps this is where the true significance of the Venezuelan experience lies. The possible disappearance of the bolívar could be interpreted as the historic defeat of a political model, but it could also become the starting point for a pragmatic reconstruction. Everything will depend on what the country does after the decision. A stable currency does not create a prosperous nation. It merely creates an environment in which prosperity can once again become possible. The rest will depend on the quality of institutions, productive capacity, the education of citizens and the country’s ability to transform its resources into sustainable power.

The Venezuelan question thus joins the one now running through a large part of the Global South: how can genuine sovereignty be built in a world where no economy can be completely autonomous, but where technological, financial and energy dependence can become a strategic weakness? The answer will be neither a complete return to the economic models of the twentieth century nor the total surrender of the state to the global market. It will probably have to be found in a third path: accepting the interdependencies the country cannot avoid while developing sufficient domestic capabilities to choose its partners, negotiate its interests and protect its population.

Venezuela has a rare opportunity to test this hypothesis. Its crisis is deep enough to make the old solutions inadequate, yet its resources remain significant enough to make reconstruction possible. Dollarization could trigger a new phase, but it can never constitute its entire substance. The real project will have to focus on transforming a rentier and fragile economy into a productive, technological, diversified economy connected to the world.

THE GREAT CONTRADICTION OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY: A WORLD SEEKING TO MOVE AWAY FROM DOLLAR DEPENDENCE AT THE VERY MOMENT VENEZUELA COULD CHOOSE TO ANCHOR ITSELF TO THE DOLLAR

The possible disappearance of the bolívar takes on a much deeper meaning when placed within the transformation of the international monetary system. The paradox is immediate: while several emerging powers are seeking to reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar, Venezuela could choose to do precisely the opposite and officially adopt the American currency. This apparent contradiction should not, however, be interpreted as an inconsistency. On the contrary, it reveals one of the great realities of the twenty first century: states no longer necessarily choose their monetary architecture according to a universal doctrine, but according to their actual capabilities, vulnerabilities, national interests and position within power relations. China can seek to develop alternatives to the dollar dominated system because it possesses an industrial, technological, commercial and financial base sufficiently large to support that ambition. India can pursue a policy of strategic autonomy by simultaneously using several currencies and several partners. Venezuela, confronted with extremely high inflation, considerable debt, an institutional reconstruction that remains incomplete and a currency whose credibility has been profoundly destroyed, could reach a different conclusion: formal monetary sovereignty is not necessarily preferable to monetary stability achieved through integration into an international currency.

This contradiction becomes all the more interesting because the movement toward monetary diversification is no longer merely theoretical. In July 2026, Jim O’Neill, the economist who created the BRIC concept, estimated that the possibility of the BRICS developing alternatives to the dollar had become much more credible than he had previously thought, particularly because of advances in payment technologies and growing interest in reducing dependence on the dollar. He nevertheless emphasized that the dollar remained dominant and that the BRICS’ concrete achievements remained limited outside certain institutions such as the New Development Bank. (Reuters) This nuance is essential. The world is not moving abruptly from a dollar dominated system to one dominated by a competing currency. Rather, it is entering a period of diversification of financial infrastructures, in which several systems can coexist without any one of them having yet replaced the previous one.

The phenomenon is comparable to what is occurring in the technological sphere. The power of a system no longer depends solely on possession of a final product; it depends on the ecosystem surrounding it. An international currency is not simply a banknote used in transactions. It rests on banks, capital markets, payment infrastructures, reserves, sovereign bonds, legal systems, financial institutions, correspondent banking networks, accounting standards and international confidence. It is precisely this architecture that gives the dollar a depth its potential competitors cannot reproduce quickly. A currency can be used in trade without thereby becoming a genuine global reserve currency. A credible alternative to the dollar requires far more than a political declaration.

American power therefore resides less in the sheer volume of dollars in circulation than in the financial ecosystem built around the currency. This explains why American financial sanctions can exert an influence that extends far beyond the territory of the United States. When a country or company risks losing access to dollar denominated financial channels, the question is not merely which currency it will use tomorrow. It must also determine which banks will accept its payments, which investors will still be able to purchase its securities, which companies will be able to insure its cargoes, which intermediaries will be able to process its transactions and which infrastructures will be able to carry its value. The dollar is therefore an architecture of power as much as it is a currency.

Washington’s current strategy shows that this financial dimension is now integrated into American economic and geopolitical policy. On August 24, 2026, the Trump administration further intensified its economic pressure on Iran by threatening countries and companies that continue to trade with Tehran with measures that could limit their access to the American financial system. Reuters reports that the new measures concern, among other things, financial networks, digital assets, maritime transport, gold and certain technological activities, while China, the principal buyer of Iranian oil, remains at the center of a delicate balance between American pressure and the need to preserve Sino American economic relations. (Reuters) This development once again demonstrates that the dollar is not merely an instrument of commerce; it is a lever of foreign policy.

The same logic is evident in the relationship between Washington and Beijing. Trade tensions are no longer limited to a dispute over the level of tariffs. They now concern value chains, industrial overcapacity, strategic technologies, raw materials, data, semiconductors and market access conditions. The American government continues to use tariffs as an instrument of negotiation and industrial protection, while China seeks to preserve its markets and strengthen its domestic capabilities. On August 24, 2026, the Trump administration was considering, in particular, a new 7.5% tariff on certain Chinese products in response to American accusations of overcapacity and what it considers unfair competition, while the two powers continue to negotiate in parallel. (AP News) This combination of confrontation and negotiation constitutes one of the essential characteristics of the new global economic order.

Venezuela’s situation therefore becomes particularly revealing. If Caracas adopts the dollar, it would not simply be choosing a stable currency; it would be choosing a currency belonging to the very system whose financial infrastructures Washington uses as an instrument of power. This does not mean that Venezuela would automatically become a strategic ally of the United States. A currency does not by itself determine foreign policy. But the financial interdependence created by dollarization would necessarily reduce certain margins of maneuver. Venezuela would have to take greater account of the rules and constraints associated with the American financial system, particularly if it wishes to attract capital, restore international banking relations and gradually reintegrate capital markets.

It is precisely for this reason that the Venezuelan decision could have geopolitical significance greater than its technical appearance suggests. Abandoning the bolívar would not merely be a response to inflation; it would constitute a positioning choice within the global financial architecture. The question would then become less “which currency does Venezuela want to use?” than “within which power infrastructure does Venezuela want to place its reconstruction?” This formulation makes it possible to understand why the decision could be closely watched by the United States, China, Russia, Iran, Brazil, the Caribbean countries and international financial institutions.

It would nevertheless be erroneous to conclude that dollarization would automatically place Venezuela in absolute dependence on Washington. Modern economies are crossed by several networks simultaneously. A Venezuelan company could use the dollar for its accounts, purchase Chinese equipment, sell oil to several markets, attract European capital, use Indian technologies and work with Brazilian suppliers. The contemporary world precisely makes this type of combination possible. The strategic question is therefore not necessarily to choose a camp, but to build an architecture sufficiently diversified to prevent any single partner from imposing all the terms of the relationship.

This logic corresponds to the rise of what might be called a transactional geography of power. Alliances remain, but they are increasingly supplemented by ad hoc relationships based on interests. States cooperate with partners who may be competitors on other issues. They sign energy agreements while disputing trade. They collaborate on digital infrastructure while developing their own payment systems. They participate in the same international organizations while pursuing different strategies. Power is therefore no longer organized solely around closed blocs; it circulates through multiple and sometimes contradictory networks.

This transformation is particularly visible in the BRICS. Their political importance should not be underestimated, but their heterogeneity prevents them from being regarded as a new economic Soviet Union. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa do not share the same strategic interests. The group’s expansion increases its demographic and economic weight, but it also increases the diversity of interests represented. China wants to reduce certain vulnerabilities linked to the dollar while remaining deeply integrated into Western markets. India defends a strategic autonomy that prevents it from fully embracing an anti American logic. Brazil has traditionally favored an autonomous diplomacy. The Gulf states seek to maintain relations with Washington while developing their Asian partnerships. Russia, meanwhile, is much more directly confronted with the consequences of confrontation with Western economies.

This diversity explains why the dedollarization project is advancing more through infrastructure than through a common currency. Payment systems, bilateral agreements in national currencies, development banks and clearing mechanisms can gradually reduce the use of the dollar without creating a new global currency. The real revolution could therefore be less spectacular than that announced by certain political discourses. It would not necessarily involve replacing the dollar, but rather gradually reducing the situations in which the dollar is indispensable.

This distinction is fundamental for Venezuela. Even if several partners propose alternative mechanisms, Caracas’s ability to rapidly access financing, restructure its debt, attract investors and rebuild its energy sector will still depend largely on its ability to operate within the principal international financial networks. Global monetary diversification does not automatically offer Venezuela an equivalent alternative. Countries with strong productive capacity can exercise greater choice over their payment infrastructures; countries undergoing reconstruction must first restore their access to markets and capital.

This reality reinforces the significance of rapprochement with the IMF. The resumption of relations with the institution in April 2026 does not mean that Venezuela immediately has a comprehensive financing program or a solution to its debt, but it marks the return of an institutional channel that had been interrupted for several years. (El Diario Venezuela – elDiario.com) From a reconstruction perspective, this relationship could become one of the pillars of international economic reintegration. Dollarization could then be considered not as a rupture with the global financial system, but as one element of a broader reintegration.

However, this reintegration will come at a price. Venezuela will probably have to accept requirements concerning transparency, fiscal discipline, institutional reform and economic restructuring. The transition to the dollar could make some of these constraints more difficult to circumvent. This is precisely why the reform can simultaneously be perceived as a loss of freedom and as a source of credibility. By eliminating the possibility of financing certain deficits through monetary issuance, Venezuela would voluntarily accept a reduction in its economic policy space. But this limitation could also make future commitments more credible in the eyes of investors and international partners.

This is a classic mechanism of institutional credibility: a government can sometimes strengthen confidence by imposing constraints on itself that it could not easily circumvent. A fiscal constitution, an independent central bank or a common currency can produce this type of effect. Dollarization radicalizes the mechanism by virtually eliminating the possibility of creating a national currency. The government can no longer promise not to use monetary issuance; it simply no longer possesses that instrument. But this constraint has value only if it is politically sustainable. If institutions are sufficiently fragile that a political crisis leads to the reform being challenged, credibility could disappear as quickly as it emerged.

The constitutional question therefore becomes important. The Venezuelan debate is not solely about the economic feasibility of the project. Steve Hanke maintains that his proposal would be compatible with constitutional provisions concerning the monetary system, while the full text and legal architecture have not yet been made public in their entirety. Venezuelan media have emphasized that several essential questions remain to be clarified, including the initial conversion rate, the resources required for the transition, the treatment of contracts and liabilities and the reorganization of the banking system. (El Diario Venezuela – elDiario.com) The debate will therefore have to move beyond the macroeconomic argument to address legality, property, contractual obligations and the protection of citizens.

This legal question possesses a particular political dimension. A national currency is embedded in institutions and in the collective imagination. Replacing it therefore requires legitimacy that goes beyond the technical expertise of an economist. A reform of this magnitude can be sustainable only if a sufficiently large part of society considers that it serves a national interest. Public debate will therefore have to be transparent, pluralistic and based on verifiable data. Dollarization should not be presented as a magic formula, but as a choice involving clearly identified advantages, lost instruments and risks.

This requirement for transparency becomes even more important because the current debate remains at the proposal stage. The project associated with Antonio Ecarri and Steve Hanke has not yet been presented as a definitively adopted law. On August 21, Ecarri’s team clarified that contact with Hanke arose from the deputy’s personal initiative and not from an institutional request by the National Assembly. (El Diario Venezuela – elDiario.com) This clarification must be preserved in any serious analysis. It would be premature to write that Venezuela has decided to abandon the bolívar. The established fact is different: a proposal for full dollarization, involving the replacement of the bolívar with the dollar and the closure of the Central Bank of Venezuela, is currently being developed and politically promoted by Ecarri with Hanke’s support. (Fortune)

This distinction between a project and a decision is not a secondary nuance. It is a fundamental requirement of international journalism. In such a sensitive context, analysis must resist the temptation to turn a political hypothesis into an accomplished fact. The role of a reference dossier is not to predict on behalf of the actors, but to show the possible trajectories, their conditions for realization and their consequences. Venezuela could dollarize. It could also postpone the decision, modify the proposal or choose an intermediate solution. The scenario examined in this dossier must therefore continue to be presented as a potential transformation until an effective legal and institutional framework has been adopted.

This caution does not prevent an assessment of its potential consequences. If the reform were adopted, Venezuela would enter a particular category of states that have accepted relinquishing their national currency in favor of a foreign currency. But its case would be exceptional because of the combination of several factors: global energy weight, the scale of the crisis, the size of the debt, the depth of the diaspora, proximity to the United States, historical relations with China and Russia, and its strategic role in the Caribbean and Latin America. Venezuelan dollarization could therefore become a much more significant event than previous Latin American experiences.

Panama provides an instructive example, but the comparison must be handled with caution. Its economy has a very different logistical and financial structure, particularly around the canal and international services. Ecuador, for its part, adopted the dollar in 2000 amid a financial crisis and severe inflation, but its economy, debt, institutions and energy sector differed profoundly from those of present day Venezuela. El Salvador has also adopted the dollar while retaining certain national monetary functions. None of these cases can therefore be mechanically replicated. Their value lies instead in the possibility of identifying the general mechanisms and particular conditions that shaped their trajectories.

Above all, Venezuela should avoid turning comparison into imitation. Its problem is not merely inflation. It must simultaneously address debt, rebuild the oil sector, modernize its infrastructure, restore credit, reorganize public finances, rebuild essential services and reintegrate a considerable diaspora. Currency is only one piece of the puzzle. The challenge is precisely to ensure that this piece is compatible with all the others.

This necessity brings us back to the fundamental question of power in the twenty first century. A modern state is not powerful merely because it possesses its own currency. It is powerful because it can produce, finance, innovate, secure its infrastructure, educate its citizens, negotiate with major powers and protect its interests within international networks. Currency can support this power, but it does not create it. Venezuela long possessed a national currency, considerable oil reserves and a relatively centralized state. Yet these attributes did not prevent the collapse of its economic capacity. The historical lesson is clear: instruments of sovereignty are valuable only to the extent that the institutions behind them make them effective.

This is why the possible disappearance of the bolívar could ultimately be less important than what comes after it. If Venezuela uses this rupture to rebuild its financial system, restore its infrastructure, develop its human capital and diversify its economy, the monetary change could become a starting point. If, on the contrary, dollarization merely replaces banknotes without reforming the state, it could freeze certain vulnerabilities in a new form. Success will therefore depend less on the color of the banknotes than on the quality of the national project that accompanies them.

This conclusion leads directly to a central question for the next stage of our analysis: what happens when a state abandons its currency but retains all the social, political and economic responsibilities that define a modern state? The answer requires rethinking public finance, debt, the banking system, reserves, investment, wages, social protection and the relationship between the state and the citizen. It also requires determining whether dollarization can become a temporary discipline enabling reconstruction or whether it risks becoming a permanent dependency.

Venezuela could thus become a real world laboratory for a broader transformation. Its experience would make it possible to observe whether, in a world of interdependent financial powers, the loss of a traditional instrument of sovereignty can be compensated by the acquisition of new capabilities. The question would then no longer be whether the country possesses its own currency, but whether it possesses sufficient economic, technological and institutional power not to become a prisoner of the currency it has chosen.

And it is precisely here that the debate over the bolívar connects with the great civilizational shift of our time. The twentieth century built much of its international politics around territories, borders, currencies, armies and ideological blocs. The twenty first century adds data, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, instant financial networks, logistics chains, semiconductors, technological platforms and the capacity to control flows of knowledge to this architecture. States that understand this transformation will be able to turn their interdependencies into power. Those that continue to measure their sovereignty solely through the instruments of the previous century risk discovering that legal independence no longer guarantees strategic autonomy.

The possible disappearance of the bolívar would then become a particularly powerful symbol of this transition. A country could abandon its national currency while, paradoxically, seeking to regain a national capacity for action. The real issue would be whether it can transform this renunciation into a strategic choice rather than a simple capitulation before economic reality.

THE NEW ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF DONALD TRUMP: FROM VENEZUELA TO CHINA, FROM IRAN TO NATO, AN AMERICAN POWER RECONFIGURING THE WORLD

The possible disappearance of the bolívar cannot be fully understood without placing it within the much broader transformation of American power politics. Venezuela is neither an isolated economy nor merely a Latin American episode. Its monetary trajectory is now embedded in an international environment in which the United States is redefining its priorities, its instruments of pressure, and its relationships with both allies and adversaries. Donald Trump’s policy must therefore be examined from this broader perspective: it does not correspond merely to a succession of tariff, energy, diplomatic, or military decisions, but rather to an attempt to reconstruct a geography of power in which Washington seeks to reaffirm the centrality of its economic, industrial, energy, and security interests. This transformation has major implications for Venezuela: the country may be compelled to choose a new economic architecture precisely at a moment when the international environment surrounding it is becoming more unstable, more transactional, and more competitive.

The first element of this new geography is the return of economic power as an explicit instrument of foreign policy. Tariffs are no longer presented solely as instruments designed to protect certain American industries. They are increasingly used as tools of negotiation, pressure, and reorganization of trade relations. U.S. tariff policy toward China illustrates this evolution with particular intensity. Washington is seeking to reduce certain industrial dependencies, protect sectors considered strategic, and pressure Beijing to accept particular trade arrangements. Beijing, for its part, is using its industrial weight, domestic market, supply chains, and technological capabilities to resist this pressure. The trade conflict is therefore becoming a competition over who will control the value chains of the twenty-first century.

This competition cannot be separated from the technological dimension. Tariffs represent only the most visible component of a much deeper confrontation involving semiconductors, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, batteries, electric vehicles, critical minerals, and industrial capacity. Economic power no longer depends solely on the ability to produce at scale; it increasingly depends on the ability to control the technologies that will make tomorrow’s production possible. This transformation explains why U.S.-China relations have become so sensitive. The two powers are not merely competing for markets. They are competing over part of the technological foundations of the next generation of global growth.

Within this confrontation, Venezuela occupies a distinctive position because of its energy resources. The country possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves according to widely used international data, but its ability to transform that wealth into influence remains severely constrained by the condition of its infrastructure, sanctions, financial restrictions, and production levels that remain far below its potential. A possible dollarization could therefore be interpreted in Washington not merely as a monetary change but as one element of a broader process of economic normalization. If Venezuela wants to attract Western capital, rebuild its oil industry, and reconnect with international financial networks, it will necessarily have to take the U.S. regulatory environment into account.

This also explains why Venezuela can no longer be analyzed solely through the Washington-Caracas relationship. Its relations with Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Brasília, New Delhi, the Caribbean, and international financial institutions must now be considered simultaneously. Venezuela’s strategy will likely have to seek equilibrium among several partners rather than permanently choose one camp. This necessity becomes even greater as the United States itself pursues a more transactional foreign policy in which economic and security interests are increasingly intertwined.

Iran provides another laboratory for understanding this new American geography. Washington’s policy toward Tehran demonstrates how financial sanctions, trade restrictions, and secondary pressure can be used in an attempt to modify a state’s behavior without necessarily moving immediately toward direct military confrontation. This strategy relies heavily on the strength of the American financial system and the central role of the dollar in international transactions. It reminds Venezuela of a fundamental reality: integration into the global financial system brings considerable benefits, but it also creates exposure to the rules and instruments of power wielded by states that control part of its infrastructure.

The Iranian case also helps explain why monetary diversification advocated by some emerging economies is no longer merely a financial debate. It has become a national-security issue. When sanctions can restrict access to banks, insurance, capital markets, or payment infrastructures, financial dependence becomes a strategic vulnerability. States seeking to reduce this vulnerability therefore develop alternative mechanisms. Yet the challenge remains enormous: creating an international financial infrastructure capable of competing with that of the United States requires time, capital, confidence, and market depth that few countries can provide.

China possesses more of these capabilities than most other powers. It has an enormous economy, an exceptional industrial base, substantial reserves, competitive technology companies, and a global commercial network. It can therefore pursue a strategy of gradually reducing certain dependencies without immediately breaking with the dollar-dominated system. Beijing has no obvious interest in destroying that system abruptly. A significant part of its commercial and financial strength remains integrated into global markets. China’s strategy is therefore better understood as an effort to create additional options rather than immediately replace the existing architecture.

This nuance is important for understanding the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI has often been presented as a Chinese attempt to create an alternative global economic system. That interpretation contains an element of truth but remains too simplistic. The BRI has primarily enabled Beijing to develop trade corridors, infrastructure, energy networks, ports, railways, and financial relationships with a considerable number of countries. Its effectiveness varies substantially according to the projects, countries, and periods involved. Financial difficulties, environmental criticism, debt risks, and domestic political reactions have also constrained some of its initial ambitions.

The evolution of the BRI is revealing of a broader transformation. China is no longer interested solely in building large physical infrastructure projects. It is also seeking to develop digital infrastructure, intelligent logistics networks, industrial supply chains, and technologies capable of strengthening its influence. Chinese power is therefore gradually moving from ports and roads toward data, technological standards, and value chains. This shift corresponds precisely to the transformation of the international system that Venezuela must now understand.

The relative weakening of the BRICS project must also be analyzed with nuance. It would be excessive to speak of collapse. The group remains significant, and its expansion has increased its demographic and economic weight. Yet the ambition of rapidly constructing a coherent alternative to the dollar-dominated financial system continues to face a fundamental difficulty: its members do not share the same geopolitical interests, economic structures, or monetary objectives. India, in particular, has resisted being drawn fully into a logic of confrontation with Washington. Gulf countries seek to maintain multiple partnerships simultaneously. Brazil defends its autonomy. China pursues its own interests. Russia remains constrained by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions.

India deserves particular attention because it represents one of the clearest examples of the new strategy of strategic autonomy. New Delhi maintains close relations with Washington while preserving important ties with Moscow, expanding its relations with Europe, deepening exchanges with the Gulf states, and continuing its integration with Asian economies. This policy is not a sign of indecision. It reflects a deliberate strategy aimed at maximizing freedom of maneuver. India seeks to become sufficiently important that it does not have to make a permanent choice between competing major architectures.

South Korea follows a different but equally revealing logic. Its historic dependence on the American alliance remains fundamental to its security, yet its economy is deeply integrated into Asian and global industrial value chains. Seoul therefore seeks to preserve its strategic alliance while defending its own industrial interests. Semiconductors, batteries, automobiles, digital technologies, and shipbuilding have become instruments of national power. South Korea thus demonstrates that a state can remain strategically dependent on an alliance for security while developing considerable economic and technological autonomy.

The distinction between security autonomy and economic autonomy is essential to understanding the new global geography. The twenty-first century no longer operates according to a logic in which belonging to one bloc automatically determines all economic choices. States are seeking to multiply their options. They may depend on one power for security, another for energy, a third for technology, and a fourth for markets. This fragmentation of dependencies makes international relations more complex but also more flexible.

Russia represents another major experiment in this transformation. The war in Ukraine has profoundly altered its relationship with Europe and the United States. Sanctions have reduced or transformed certain economic flows, while Moscow has strengthened its energy and commercial relations with China, India, and other partners. Yet this reorientation has also exposed important limitations. Russia retains significant military and energy power, but its economic and technological base remains considerably narrower than those of the United States or China. The war has also increased the human, financial, and industrial costs of its strategy.

The relative weakening of Russia in certain economic and technological dimensions does not mean that it has ceased to be a major power. Rather, it means that its model of power is encountering new constraints. In a world where advanced technologies, semiconductors, software, capital, and logistics chains are becoming as important as traditional military resources, a power that does not sufficiently control these domains may retain a high capacity for disruption while gradually losing some of its capacity to shape economic transformation. This evolution must be closely observed by Venezuela, which has maintained strategic relations with Moscow.

The relationship with Cuba provides another example of this transformation. For decades, Cuba represented one of the most enduring symbols of twentieth-century ideological confrontation in the Western Hemisphere. Yet the new international reality is pushing even actors deeply attached to their historical legacies to seek spaces for pragmatism. Changes in relations between Washington and certain governments in the region should therefore be observed less through the lens of old ideological categories and more through concrete interests: migration, security, energy, trade, counter-trafficking efforts, humanitarian cooperation, and regional stability.

This transformation is particularly important for the Caribbean. The region sits at the intersection of several powers: the United States, China, Europe, India, Canada, and major Latin American economies. Caribbean states have limited resources but considerable geographic importance. They can become logistics, energy, tourism, and digital platforms. Their climate vulnerability and external dependence remain significant, but their geopolitical importance is increasing as maritime routes, digital infrastructure, and energy corridors become more strategic.

Venezuela belongs to this Caribbean space while also being deeply Latin American. This dual positioning gives it a distinctive role. It can play a part in regional energy networks, trade with the Antilles, maritime security, relations with Colombia and Brazil, and debates over Latin American cooperation. Economic stabilization could therefore produce regional effects far greater than those captured by Venezuelan statistics alone.

U.S. policy toward NATO must also be incorporated into this analysis. The transformation of transatlantic relations reveals another dimension of Trump’s strategy: the desire to push European allies to increase their contribution to their own security and reduce certain economic and military imbalances. This approach may generate tensions, but it also reflects a structural transformation of the Western order. European states are being compelled to think more seriously about strategic autonomy, defense production, supply chains, and energy capacity.

This European evolution could have indirect consequences for Latin America. A Europe increasingly concerned with security, defense, and industrial competitiveness will also seek to strengthen its trade and energy relationships with other regions. Latin America could become more important for investment, critical minerals, agricultural products, and certain industrial value chains. Venezuela could theoretically benefit from this evolution, but only if it can provide a sufficiently predictable political and legal environment.

The major transformation therefore lies in the transition from a world organized around the relatively open globalization of the 1990s and 2000s toward a world of strategic globalization. International trade is not disappearing. It is becoming more selective. Governments are seeking to secure certain supply chains, protect strategic technologies, control critical infrastructure, and reduce dependencies considered dangerous. This new globalization is more political than its predecessor.

It is within this context that American tariff policy acquires its true significance. Tariffs are not merely protectionist instruments. They can be used to redirect investment, alter production chains, negotiate agreements, and exert political pressure. Yet their effectiveness also depends on their costs. Excessively high tariffs can increase prices, disrupt American businesses, and provoke retaliation. Trade policy therefore becomes an exercise in balancing external pressure with domestic costs.

For Venezuela, this situation creates both an opportunity and a risk. The opportunity lies in the possibility of becoming a more important energy supplier to a U.S. market seeking to secure certain sources of supply. The risk lies in excessive dependence on a single market. A rational strategy should therefore seek to rebuild exports to the United States while simultaneously developing relationships with Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Geographic diversification of exports would be as important as diversification across productive sectors.

Such a strategy nevertheless assumes that Venezuela can rapidly rebuild its production capacity. Oil reserves alone are not enough. The country needs capital, equipment, engineers, transportation infrastructure, financial services, and a stable legal framework. The energy sector could become the engine of reconstruction, but only if it is integrated into a broader industrial policy. The central question would be how to transform every dollar of energy revenue into future productive capacity.

This is where comparison with China becomes particularly instructive. Beijing used the revenues generated by its growth to build infrastructure, develop universities, finance research, support industry, and create value chains. Venezuela obviously cannot reproduce this model identically. But it can draw one fundamental lesson from it: resource rents become durable power only when they are transformed into productive capabilities. Consuming rents creates temporary prosperity. Investing rents in capabilities creates intergenerational power.

India offers another lesson: demographics become an advantage only when human capital is developed. A young population without quality education can become a vulnerability. A young population equipped with digital, scientific, and entrepreneurial skills can become a driver of growth. Venezuela possesses a substantial population and a skilled diaspora. Its priority should therefore be to transform this human base into a strategic advantage.

South Korea, meanwhile, demonstrates that a country with relatively limited natural resources can become an industrial and technological power by investing heavily in education, infrastructure, and export-oriented companies. Again, the point is not to copy a model but to understand the principle. Twenty-first-century economic sovereignty increasingly rests on the ability to produce goods and knowledge that other countries want to buy.

Venezuela will therefore have to move beyond the old debate between economic nationalism and international openness. It cannot develop without foreign trade, but neither can it remain content with exporting raw materials. It must use openness to move upward in global value chains. This strategy could involve petrochemicals, energy services, processed agriculture, environmental technologies, logistics, digital services, and selected activities linked to strategic minerals.

This transformation would require a new relationship with China. Beijing could become an important partner for infrastructure and certain technologies, but Caracas should avoid replacing one dependency with another. A balanced strategy would involve attracting Chinese investment while maintaining relations with the United States, Europe, Brazil, India, and other partners. Venezuela would thereby have greater leverage to negotiate investment conditions and prevent any single actor from dominating its strategic infrastructure.

The same caution should guide relations with Washington. Possible dollarization could facilitate certain transactions and strengthen financial confidence, but it should not become synonymous with political dependence. Venezuela could pursue pragmatic normalization with the United States while maintaining an autonomous foreign policy. This combination would probably be more realistic than a return to permanent ideological confrontation.

Trump’s new geography makes this strategy both more difficult and more necessary. Washington appears increasingly willing to use economic instruments to obtain political outcomes. Partners capable of negotiating their interests may benefit from this approach. Those entering a logic of absolute confrontation may be more exposed to the costs of asymmetric power. For Caracas, the most effective strategy could therefore be one of intelligent transactional diplomacy: recognizing the legitimate interests of other powers while clearly protecting its own.

Such an approach requires one prior condition: credibility. A state cannot negotiate effectively if its interlocutors do not believe that its commitments will be respected. Monetary reform could contribute to this credibility if accompanied by broader institutional reform. Venezuela could then transform financial stabilization into diplomatic capital. Investors, banks, governments, and companies would gradually begin to view the country as an economic partner rather than a permanent risk.

This is probably where the true significance of the possible disappearance of the bolívar within the new global geography lies. The monetary change could become the first visible signal of a much deeper transformation of Venezuela. The objective would no longer be merely to restore price stability. It would be to reposition the country within an international system in which the ideological boundaries of the twentieth century are gradually giving way to networks of interdependence.

Venezuela could then become a case study in the transition toward this new order. Its monetary choice would reveal a reality that many other countries may soon have to confront: twenty-first-century sovereignty does not mean being completely independent, an objective that is practically impossible in an interconnected global economy. It means possessing enough options never to become entirely dependent on a single actor.

This new conception of sovereignty requires a multidimensional foreign policy. Washington will remain important, but so will Beijing. Europe can provide capital and technology. India represents a major energy market. Brazil will be an indispensable regional partner. The Caribbean will offer logistical and commercial opportunities. International institutions can provide financing mechanisms and credibility. The diaspora can contribute human and financial capital. Venezuela’s true strategic advantage may lie precisely in its ability to connect these different spaces.

Yet this strategy will work only if Caracas accepts one fundamental truth: in the world ahead, power is no longer measured solely by the ability to say no. It is measured by the ability to offer something that others have an interest in accepting.

Venezuela still holds important cards. Its energy resources, geography, population, natural wealth, maritime access, and diaspora constitute considerable assets. What it primarily lacks is the institutional capacity to transform these assets into durable power. Possible dollarization could provide an initial anchor. But the real reconstruction must take place elsewhere: in education, technology, industry, justice, infrastructure, energy, and trust.

Trump’s new geography therefore does not necessarily condemn Venezuela to choose between Washington and Beijing, any more than it automatically guarantees its economic reintegration. It creates an environment in which the quality of national strategy becomes decisive. A stabilized, predictable, and pragmatic Venezuela could become a partner sought by several powers. A Venezuela unable to resolve its internal contradictions would remain vulnerable to external pressure, regardless of the currency it uses.

The great question is therefore no longer simply that of the dollar versus the bolívar. It has become the question of a state’s ability to navigate a world in which alliances are less absolute, trade is more politicized, technologies are more strategic, and dependencies are more complex. It is within this new geography that Venezuela’s place in the twenty-first century will ultimately be decided.

THE GLOBAL SOUTH UNDER PRESSURE FROM THE NEW POWER:

TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DEPENDENCIES AND THE RISK OF A NEW CIVILIZATIONAL DIVIDE

The Venezuelan question takes on an even greater significance when placed within the broader context of the Global South. The crisis of the bolívar, the possible adoption of the U.S. dollar, and Caracas’s international repositioning are not merely national issues. They illustrate a challenge that now concerns a large part of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Asia: how to preserve national decision-making capacity in a world where the principal determinants of power are rapidly shifting toward technology, data, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, semiconductors, computing capacity, financial systems, and global value chains. The great paradox of the twenty-first century is that states in the Global South often possess full legal sovereignty, significant natural resources, young populations, and considerable demographic weight, yet remain far removed from the centers where an essential part of technological and financial power is now concentrated. The emerging divide is therefore no longer simply the one that once separated industrialized countries from poorer countries. It is increasingly a divide between societies capable of producing the infrastructures and technologies of the new economy and those that still have to import them in order to participate in that economy.

This transformation requires a reassessment of traditional classifications of development. For much of the twentieth century, national wealth was primarily associated with industrialization, capital accumulation, access to natural resources, education, and physical infrastructure. These factors remain essential, but they are now being supplemented by a new layer of capabilities that can profoundly alter the international hierarchy. Mastery of data, algorithms, telecommunications networks, data centers, cybersecurity systems, computing technologies, and semiconductors is gradually becoming as strategic as possession of oil, gas, or minerals. An economy may therefore possess immense natural resources and remain vulnerable if it does not control the technologies required to exploit, transform, and integrate those resources into high-value-added chains.

Venezuela is precisely a particularly revealing example of this contradiction. The country possesses exceptional energy wealth, yet that wealth has not prevented the collapse of its economic capacity. The fundamental question is therefore no longer whether Venezuela possesses sufficient resources. The issue is whether it possesses the institutions, skills, capital, and technologies required to transform those resources into sustainable economic power. This distinction is essential because it explains why monetary stabilization, even if successful, could represent only a first step. The real challenge would begin after stabilization: transforming an economy that has long depended on rent into one capable of producing, innovating, exporting, and learning.

The same problem appears across much of the Global South. Oil-exporting economies may have substantial revenues while importing a large share of their technologies. Mining countries may export lithium, copper, cobalt, or nickel while importing the batteries, industrial equipment, and digital systems required to transform these resources into high-value-added products. Agricultural countries may produce large volumes of raw materials while remaining dependent on foreign technologies for seeds, processing, logistics, irrigation, storage, and marketing. Possessing a resource is therefore no longer equivalent to controlling the value chain.

This reality profoundly changes the nature of dependency. In older forms of dependency, domination could be relatively visible: territorial control, military presence, commercial monopoly, political domination, or direct control of resources. In the digital economy, dependency can be far less visible. It may reside in the operating system of a device, the provider of a cloud service, the software used by a government administration, the components of a telecommunications network, the processors powering a data center, or the financial infrastructure that enables capital transfers. The end user may never see the infrastructure upon which their activity depends. Yet whoever controls that infrastructure possesses considerable influence.

Artificial intelligence further intensifies this asymmetry. It is not merely a new generation of software. It is becoming a general-purpose layer of the global economy, with transformative potential comparable to electricity, telecommunications, or the Internet. It can alter the productivity of intellectual work, accelerate scientific research, automate certain administrative functions, transform medicine, improve industrial management, optimize transportation, and create new markets. Yet its development requires resources that not all countries possess on the same scale: computing power, data centers, abundant and reliable energy, communications infrastructure, capital, engineers, researchers, high-quality data, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

The risk is therefore that a new divide will emerge between countries that produce artificial intelligence systems and those that can only use them. Such a divide would be far deeper than a simple difference in access to technology. It could affect national productivity, industrial competitiveness, the quality of education, administrative efficiency, scientific research, and even military capabilities. Countries that master artificial intelligence systems will be able to accelerate their development across several fields simultaneously, while those that remain merely consumers may see their dependency increase.

The problem is particularly serious for countries whose education systems are insufficiently prepared. Artificial intelligence does not eliminate the need for education; on the contrary, it increases the value of skills capable of using it properly. A society that lacks sufficient scientific, mathematical, linguistic, and digital training risks becoming dependent not only on foreign technologies, but also on the knowledge produced through those technologies. The challenge for the Global South is therefore to avoid becoming merely a market for artificial intelligence systems designed elsewhere.

This question should occupy a central place in Venezuela’s reconstruction. A significant part of the country’s diaspora consists of qualified professionals now living in technologically advanced economies. Venezuela could seek to transform this dispersion into a network of expertise. It would not be necessary to ask all expatriate professionals to return permanently. A more realistic approach would be to create mechanisms allowing their knowledge to circulate. An engineer based in Madrid could participate in a Venezuelan project without leaving their employment. A researcher based in Toronto could collaborate with a university in Caracas. An entrepreneur living in Miami could invest in a local digital company. A team of developers distributed across several countries could work for a company registered in Venezuela. The diaspora would then become a transnational human infrastructure.

This approach breaks with the older view of migration as an irreversible loss of human capital. In a digital economy, mobility can also become a form of skills circulation. The challenge is no longer simply to bring people physically back; it is to create conditions that allow knowledge to return even when individuals remain geographically dispersed. This distinction could become fundamental for Venezuela and for many Global South countries facing the emigration of young graduates.

But human capital alone is not enough. Energy is also required. Artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure demand increasing amounts of electricity. Data centers, networks, and computing equipment depend on stable and competitive energy supplies. This reality gives renewed strategic importance to countries with abundant energy resources, but it also changes the nature of that importance. Oil is no longer the only strategic resource. Gas, hydropower, solar, wind, nuclear energy, and electricity grids are also becoming essential to the digital economy.

Venezuela could therefore transform its energy advantage into a digital advantage, but only if it invests in infrastructure. Having oil underground does not automatically make it possible to power a data center. Electricity must be generated, grids must be modernized, service continuity must be guaranteed, communications must be secured, and sufficiently fast international connections must be available. The transition to the digital economy therefore begins, paradoxically, with highly physical infrastructure. The cloud may appear intangible to the user, but it rests on buildings, cables, power plants, transformers, cooling systems, and highly material networks.

This reality explains why digital sovereignty cannot be built solely through national applications. It requires a complete architecture. States must understand their technological dependencies, identify critical infrastructure, protect their networks, and train specialists capable of maintaining their systems. They must also avoid two opposing mistakes: believing that they can produce everything themselves, or accepting total dependence on a handful of foreign providers. The first option is often economically unrealistic; the second is strategically dangerous. The most reasonable path is to build national capabilities in critical areas while diversifying suppliers and partnerships.

This logic directly connects with the monetary question. Dollarization could reduce one specific vulnerability for Venezuela by eliminating the risk associated with the collapse of its own currency, but it would not resolve any of the country’s technological dependencies. Venezuela could use the dollar and remain dependent on foreign software. It could stabilize its banking system and remain dependent on imported technologies. It could restore its oil exports while importing almost all of the equipment required for their transformation. Monetary sovereignty therefore represents only one component of a much broader architecture.

Here, it is necessary to introduce a distinction between sovereignty of ownership and sovereignty of capability. The former consists of legally owning an asset, resource, or institution. The latter consists of actually being able to use it autonomously and effectively. A country may own a national oil company without possessing the technology required to sustain its production. It may have a central bank without being able to guarantee monetary stability. It may have universities without possessing laboratories capable of participating in global research. It may own agricultural land without controlling the logistics chain required to transform production into competitive exports.

The second form of sovereignty is becoming decisive in the twenty-first century. It requires institutions capable of learning and adapting. It also requires a different political culture. States will have to accept that development is not a project completed once and for all. Technologies evolve rapidly, markets change, supply chains shift, and skills become obsolete. Effective national policy will therefore have to be capable of regularly revising its priorities.

This requirement is particularly important for the Global South because financial resources are often more limited there. A wealthy country can invest simultaneously in several technologies and absorb certain failures. A poor or heavily indebted country must choose. It must therefore identify the areas in which it can realistically build an advantage. Venezuela will probably not become a global leader in every technology. But it could seek to become competitive in areas corresponding to its natural and human advantages: energy, tropical agriculture, water management, climate, logistics, geosciences, petroleum technologies, digital services, cybersecurity, and selected applications of artificial intelligence.

Such a strategy of intelligent specialization would be more realistic than a general ambition to catch up technologically. Countries that successfully transform themselves do not necessarily seek to reproduce every stage followed by the major powers. They identify niches in which they can become indispensable. South Korea did so with semiconductors and several industrial sectors. India did so in information technology services and certain pharmaceutical sectors. The United Arab Emirates used its financial and energy power to build logistical and digital infrastructure. Singapore transformed its geography into a logistical, financial, and technological advantage. These trajectories are different, but they all rest on the same principle: converting an initial advantage into sustainable capability.

Venezuela possesses a particularly powerful initial advantage: energy. But it must avoid repeating the historical mistake of confusing abundance with development. Abundance creates an opportunity. Institutional transformation creates wealth. This distinction is fundamental. A natural resource can be extracted and sold for decades without creating a complex economy. A coherent industrial policy can use the revenues generated by that resource to develop companies, universities, infrastructure, and technologies capable of producing new sources of wealth.

The question of oil therefore becomes inseparable from the question of artificial intelligence. The connection may appear paradoxical, but it is strategic. AI systems require energy. Energy-producing economies can therefore possess a significant advantage if they invest in digital infrastructure. Venezuela could theoretically use part of its energy revenues to develop data centers, modern electricity grids, university programs, and technology companies. It could seek to become not only a hydrocarbon exporter, but also a provider of competitive energy for the digital economy.

Such a transformation would nevertheless require the political and legal stability that the country has not always experienced. Investors in digital infrastructure make decisions over several decades. They cannot invest heavily in a country where fundamental rules can change abruptly. If monetary reform is adopted, it should therefore be accompanied by a sufficiently credible policy of institutional stability to reassure long-term investors. The currency could provide the initial anchor; the rule of law should provide the lasting one.

This relationship between currency, institutions, and technology helps explain why the Venezuelan experience could extend beyond the Latin American framework. The country could become a laboratory for a question that many states will face: should they preserve every traditional instrument of sovereignty even when those instruments no longer function, or should they accept modifying certain instruments in order to concentrate resources on the capabilities that will actually determine future power? The answer will not be identical everywhere. But the question is becoming unavoidable.

The danger, however, would be to present this transformation as a form of technological inevitability. Artificial intelligence is not an autonomous force that mechanically determines the future of societies. Political choices, institutions, education, and social values will continue to play a central role. Technology can increase productivity while worsening inequality. It can improve public services while strengthening surveillance. It can facilitate education while weakening certain skills if used poorly. It can democratize access to knowledge while concentrating economic power in a handful of companies.

The Global South must therefore avoid two equally dangerous attitudes: romantic rejection of technology and naïve admiration of technology. The objective should be mastery. Countries must understand the systems, measure their consequences, build national capabilities, and establish rules capable of protecting citizens. Artificial intelligence must not become a new religion of development. It must be an instrument of development.

This approach is particularly important in education. Education systems will have to move away from models based primarily on memorization toward models that place greater value on reasoning, creativity, the ability to verify information, problem-solving, and collaboration with digital tools. This does not mean that fundamental knowledge becomes irrelevant. On the contrary, it becomes more important because an individual who lacks the necessary foundations will have much greater difficulty correctly evaluating answers produced by a machine.

Training in artificial intelligence should therefore begin with the training of human intelligence. A country that wants to become technologically sovereign must first have citizens capable of understanding the technologies they use. This obvious point is often forgotten in political debates that speak extensively about data centers and AI models without speaking enough about the teachers, universities, researchers, and students who will have to use them.

Venezuela possesses a considerable resource here: a young population and a substantial intellectual diaspora. The challenge is to reconnect these two dimensions. A national strategy could create programs enabling foreign universities where Venezuelans work to cooperate directly with universities inside the country. Joint laboratories could be established in energy, artificial intelligence, agriculture, and medicine. Expatriate researchers could participate in programs without necessarily returning permanently. Students could benefit from international training and then be encouraged to contribute to national development.

This logic could also be applied to entrepreneurship. A new generation of Venezuelan entrepreneurs could create companies whose markets are international from the outset. Digital technologies now make it possible for a small company based in Caracas, Maracaibo, or Valencia to sell services to clients in Miami, Madrid, Bogotá, or São Paulo. The principal obstacle is therefore no longer simply distance. It lies in the reliability of infrastructure, regulation, access to financing, and the ability to integrate into international networks.

Dollarization could facilitate some of these transactions by reducing exchange-rate risk. But this advantage should not be overstated. A digital company needs electricity, Internet access, skills, reliable payment systems, legal protection, and access to markets. Currency is only one element of the ecosystem. Intelligent public policy should therefore use monetary stabilization as leverage to build the other components.

The same reasoning applies to agriculture. Venezuela possesses significant agricultural potential, but productivity depends on logistics, irrigation, cold chains, financing, and technology. Artificial intelligence could help forecast yields, optimize irrigation, identify certain crop diseases, and improve inventory management. But these applications will only produce results if farmers have access to networks, electricity, equipment, and reliable markets.

Digital transformation must therefore be understood as a territorial transformation. It is not enough to create a few technology hubs in major cities. The new economy must gradually reach the regions. Otherwise, it risks creating a new divide between a small urban population connected to international networks and a majority of citizens remaining on the margins. Venezuela would then have stabilized its economy without solving its development problem.

This territorial dimension is also important for political cohesion. States that successfully undergo technological transformation are those that manage to prevent productivity gains from becoming concentrated in a few regions. Digital infrastructure should therefore be regarded as fundamental public infrastructure, alongside roads, ports, electricity, and water. Digital access is increasingly becoming a condition for economic participation.

Technological sovereignty must also not be confused with digital autarky. No country can reasonably produce every component of the contemporary digital economy on its own. Even the major powers depend on international supply chains. China depends on certain foreign technologies, the United States depends on Asian suppliers, Europe depends on several partners, and emerging economies depend on the entire ecosystem. Realistic sovereignty therefore consists of reducing critical dependencies and maintaining alternatives, not eliminating all dependencies.

This idea directly connects with the new geography of power. States are now seeking to build more resilient supply chains, diversify suppliers, and control strategic sectors. The United States wants to strengthen its technology industry and reduce certain dependencies on China. China seeks to strengthen its technological autonomy. Europe speaks of strategic sovereignty. India is developing its industrial and digital capabilities. Gulf countries are investing in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure. Global competition is therefore no longer merely commercial; it is becoming a competition for autonomous capabilities.

The Global South must take this evolution seriously. There is a real risk that developing countries will become consumers of technologies designed elsewhere, suppliers of the resources required to produce them, and markets in which those technologies are deployed. Such a configuration would reproduce, in technologically transformed form, certain historical structures of dependency. The difference would be that the infrastructures of domination would be digital rather than territorial.

To prevent this new form of dependency, states must develop an industrial policy adapted to the twenty-first century. This does not necessarily mean protecting every national company from competition. It means identifying strategic sectors in which a minimum level of domestic capacity is indispensable. Energy, telecommunications, public data, cybersecurity, financial infrastructure, and certain critical technologies should receive particular attention. Foreign partnerships remain indispensable, but they should contribute to the construction of local capabilities.

Venezuela could therefore use foreign investment as an instrument for skills and technology transfer. Every major energy or digital project should ideally include mechanisms for training, local research, participation by national companies, and the development of local suppliers. The objective would be to ensure that foreign capital progressively increases national capacity rather than simply exploiting national resources.

This approach requires a new generation of public officials and negotiators. Technology contracts are often more complex than traditional raw-material extraction agreements. They involve intellectual property, data, cybersecurity, maintenance, updates, standards, and usage rights. A state that lacks the necessary expertise may sign agreements whose long-term implications it does not fully understand. Training public administration therefore becomes a question of sovereignty.

The same problem exists in the financial sphere. Dollarization could simplify certain operations, but Venezuela would have to understand the complex mechanisms of international markets, banking compliance, anti-money-laundering requirements, sanctions, and cross-border investment. An integrated economy cannot be managed with the administrative reflexes of an isolated economy. It requires institutions capable of engaging with major banks, investors, and international organizations.

This institutional transformation could be one of the country’s greatest challenges. Rebuilding a currency is relatively simple from a technical standpoint. Rebuilding trust takes much longer. Rebuilding an administration capable of functioning within a complex global economy takes even longer. Venezuela will therefore have to think in terms of generations rather than political mandates. Major technological, educational, and institutional transformations produce results over ten, twenty, or thirty years.

This long-term perspective is precisely what is often missing from contemporary political debates. Governments seek rapid results because voters judge policies over short periods. But infrastructure, education, and technology operate on much longer cycles. Venezuela’s reconstruction will therefore require strategic continuity beyond political alternation. Without such continuity, each government risks destroying part of what its predecessor had built.

Monetary reform could precisely serve as the starting point for a new national compact. Such an important reform should not be regarded as the project of a single political current. It should be accompanied by a national debate on institutions, social protection, technology, energy, and education. The real objective would be to build a minimum consensus around the capabilities Venezuela wants to possess by 2035, 2040, and 2050.

Such an approach would make it possible to move beyond the old ideological confrontation. The question would no longer be whether Venezuela belongs to the left or the right, to the American camp or the Chinese camp, to capitalism or socialism. The question would be which institutions and capabilities enable Venezuelans to live better, produce more, protect their freedoms, and negotiate with the rest of the world from a stronger position.

This transformation of political language is fundamental. New generations cannot be condemned to relive indefinitely the ideological conflicts of the previous century. They must be able to build a politics adapted to their own realities. This does not mean erasing history. It means learning from history without becoming prisoners of its categories. National memory must remain alive, but it must not prevent society from imagining its future.

The possible abandonment of the bolívar could therefore acquire an unexpected symbolic meaning. It could represent the moment when a country recognizes that certain instruments inherited from the past no longer work and that new ones must be created. But such a rupture would only be historically positive if it were accompanied by a new national ambition. Replacing a currency without changing the development model would amount to changing the façade without rebuilding the house.

The true challenge of the twenty-first century lies elsewhere. It consists of building societies capable of producing knowledge, mastering their critical infrastructure, using natural resources intelligently, integrating their diasporas, educating their young people, and negotiating with several powers without losing their capacity for decision-making. This conception of sovereignty is more demanding than that of the previous century because it no longer allows societies to take refuge behind symbols.

It also requires acknowledging an occasionally uncomfortable reality: in the new international system, technological gaps may become more decisive than monetary gaps. A country can stabilize its currency and remain poor. It can balance its budget and remain technologically dependent. It can attract capital and remain unable to produce innovation. Financial stability is a condition for development, but it is not development itself.

Venezuela must therefore use any eventual monetary stabilization as a historic window. That window should make it possible to invest in what will truly determine its future power: education, energy, infrastructure, technology, agriculture, healthcare, research, industry, and institutions. If these investments are made, dollarization could become a transitional instrument serving a deeper transformation. If they are not made, the country could simply replace one form of vulnerability with another.

This distinction leads to a broader conclusion concerning the Global South. The twenty-first century will not simply be the century of de-dollarization or multipolarity. It will be the century of competition between different architectures of capability. The countries that succeed will be those able to transform their populations, resources, geographic position, and international relationships into technological and productive capabilities. Others risk remaining trapped in an economy of dependency, even if their political discourse asserts complete sovereignty.

Venezuela could therefore become both a warning and an opportunity. Its history shows what happens when a state possesses considerable resources without building enough institutions capable of transforming them into sustainable development. Its future could demonstrate the opposite: what becomes possible when a society accepts the need to reform its instruments, rebuild its institutions, and invest in the capabilities of the next generation.

The real battle will therefore not be fought solely between the bolívar and the dollar. It will be fought between two visions of the future. The first would seek to restore a vanished economic order while preserving the symbols, reflexes, and categories of the twentieth century. The second would accept that the world has changed and seek to build a form of sovereignty adapted to the digital age, artificial intelligence, transnational networks, and the new technological competition.

It is this second path that could offer Venezuela a historic opportunity. It would be neither submission to Washington nor automatic alignment with Beijing, nor a return to a conception of monetary sovereignty as absolute. It would be a strategy of power based on the ability to multiply options, strengthen national capabilities, and transform interdependencies into instruments of negotiation.

Venezuela would then have to answer a question that extends far beyond its borders: in a world where no major power can control everything and no state can produce everything on its own, who will truly be sovereign tomorrow? The answer will not depend on the currency printed by a central bank. It will depend on a society’s ability to understand the world that is coming, educate the generations that will build it, and never confuse symbolic independence with real power.

THE END OF AN IDEOLOGICAL ERA AND THE BIRTH OF A NEW GRAMMAR OF POWER

The possible disappearance of the bolívar should ultimately not be viewed as a mere technical decision intended to resolve a monetary crisis. It could instead prove to be one of the most visible symptoms of a far deeper historical transformation: the gradual exhaustion of a particular way of thinking about sovereignty, the state, the economy, and international relations, largely inherited from the twentieth century. For decades, societies were accustomed to framing their debates around major ideological oppositions: capitalism versus socialism, the market versus the state, nationalism versus internationalism, sovereignty versus integration, the West versus the communist world, North versus South. These categories shaped entire generations and gave rise to conflicts, institutions, alliances, and political projects whose consequences remain visible today. Yet they increasingly fail to capture a world in which power now flows through data, networks, technologies, value chains, capital, energy, digital infrastructure, and human capabilities.

The issue is not that ideologies have disappeared altogether. They continue to play an important role in political life because they provide societies with narratives, identities, and ways of interpreting the world. What appears to be losing its explanatory power, however, is their ability to account for emerging realities on their own. A state may today depend militarily on the United States, trade extensively with China, import energy from the Middle East, attract European investment, use Indian technologies, and maintain historic ties with Russia. Such a configuration would have been difficult to conceive within the rigid categories of the Cold War. Today, it has become entirely normal.

This evolution does not mean that power struggles are disappearing. Rather, it means that they are becoming more diverse. Power is no longer concentrated in a single domain. It is distributed across a range of capabilities that can be combined in different ways depending on circumstances. An energy power can become a financial power. A technological power can become a military power. A demographic power can become an economic power if it has sufficiently developed human capital. A financial power may seek to acquire technological influence. A small nation can increase its strategic importance through its geographic position, port infrastructure, data, services, or diplomatic capacity.

The real break with the twentieth century therefore lies in this plurality of forms of power. For a long time, the state was regarded as the principal actor capable of organizing national power. It remains central, but it is no longer alone. Major technology companies possess financial, scientific, and infrastructural capabilities that, in certain fields, are comparable to those of many states. Social networks influence public opinion. Digital platforms shape entire markets. Investment funds move capital at extraordinary speed. Scientific communities generate knowledge that crosses borders. Diasporas simultaneously connect multiple economic and cultural spaces.

This transformation requires a new understanding of sovereignty. In the twentieth century, sovereignty was often understood primarily as a state’s right to control its territory, currency, borders, and institutions. In the twenty-first century, that definition remains indispensable, but it is no longer sufficient. Genuine sovereignty now also requires the ability to control or secure the infrastructure on which society depends. Whoever controls electricity, telecommunications, public data, payment systems, financial infrastructure, logistics networks, and certain critical technologies wields considerable influence over a country’s ability to act.

That is why Venezuela’s monetary question has a philosophical dimension that goes far beyond the debate between a national currency and the dollar. If a state gives up its currency because it no longer performs its functions properly, it is relinquishing a traditional instrument of sovereignty. At the same time, however, it may seek to strengthen other, more fundamental instruments: productive capacity, education, justice, energy, technology, security, and international integration. The paradox, then, is only apparent. A country may surrender part of its instrumental sovereignty in order to strengthen its real sovereignty.

This distinction could become one of the defining political questions of the twenty-first century. Previous generations often associated sovereignty with the possession of national instruments. Future generations may increasingly associate it with effective capacity. Possessing a national currency that destroys savings is not necessarily a superior expression of sovereignty. Nor does owning a state enterprise that is incapable of producing efficiently guarantee economic independence. Legally controlling a resource without possessing the technologies required to unlock its value does not automatically translate into power.

Real sovereignty lies in the ability to deliver results.

This evolution also requires us to rethink economic nationalism. Twentieth-century nationalism could be built around the idea of a relatively autonomous state capable of producing a large share of what its population needed. The twenty-first century makes that ambition far more difficult to achieve. Value chains are global, technologies are distributed, financial markets are interdependent, and innovation moves rapidly across borders. Even the world’s major powers cannot independently produce every good and service their economies require.

The new economic nationalism should therefore be less preoccupied with self-sufficiency than with resilience. The objective is no longer to produce everything. It is to determine which dependencies are acceptable, which are dangerous, and which must be reduced. A country can import smartphones without facing any major strategic problem; it can be far more vulnerable if it has no alternative for its military communications systems, electricity grid, or financial infrastructure. The new form of sovereignty lies in knowing how to prioritize dependencies.

This concept applies directly to Venezuela. An economy rebuilt around oil could remain highly vulnerable if it depends on a limited number of partners for technology, financing, and markets. An economy rebuilt around a broad network of relationships could, by contrast, turn its geographic and energy position into a strategic advantage. Caracas would have an interest in remaining close enough to Washington to benefit from access to U.S. markets and capital, close enough to Beijing to attract investment and diversify its partnerships, sufficiently integrated with Latin America to strengthen regional trade, and sufficiently open to Europe and Asia to expand its outlets.

There would be nothing contradictory about such a strategy. It would reflect precisely the logic of the emerging world. India offers a particularly important example. New Delhi cooperates with Washington in strategic areas while maintaining relations with Moscow. It is deepening its ties with the Gulf states while simultaneously advancing its industrial and technological ambitions. This policy is not about choosing a bloc. It is about expanding the country’s room for maneuver.

Brazil is pursuing a similar logic of strategic autonomy, although its approach is different. Its agricultural, energy, demographic, and territorial weight allows it to negotiate with several centers of power. It can engage with the United States, trade with China, participate in BRICS, and pursue a relatively autonomous foreign policy. The ability to keep several doors open could become one of the greatest advantages of the major middle powers.

Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and several other states are likewise seeking, each according to its own interests, to make use of this new room for maneuver. They do not necessarily want to break with the Western order, nor do they seek to integrate fully into a Chinese architecture. They are seeking to maximize their options. This development is probably one of the defining characteristics of the emerging global geography.

The term multipolarity should therefore be used with caution. The world is not becoming multipolar simply because several powers possess significant military forces or substantial economies. It is becoming multipolar because different forms of power are distributed across multiple centers. The United States retains exceptional financial, technological, military, and cultural power. China possesses immense industrial and commercial power and is rapidly expanding its technological capabilities. India has considerable demographic, scientific, and economic potential. Europe retains significant regulatory, financial, commercial, and industrial power. Russia retains major military and energy capabilities despite the constraints imposed by the war. The Gulf powers possess substantial financial and energy resources. East Asian countries occupy a central position in global technology supply chains.

The world is therefore not replacing one hegemony with another. It is becoming a system of competing interdependencies.

This formulation is particularly important to understanding Venezuela’s trajectory. For several decades, the country was locked into an ideological reading of its foreign relations. Washington represented the adversary, while relations with other powers were often conceived primarily as political counterweights. In the new reality, that approach is becoming inadequate. Foreign partners must be assessed according to what they can contribute to national reconstruction and the risks they may represent. Diplomacy must become an extension of economic strategy.

The end of the ideological era therefore does not mean the end of values. It means that values must now be articulated alongside capabilities. A country can defend its national identity while using a foreign currency. It can preserve its culture while embracing global technologies. It can strengthen its political independence while participating in international institutions. It can protect its social interests while attracting private investment. True political modernity lies precisely in moving beyond the artificial contradictions that have long been used to set these dimensions against one another.

Venezuela could be one of the countries where this transition would be most visible. Recent history has produced a profound fatigue with grand ideological promises that failed to prevent impoverishment, mass emigration, and economic disorganization. A new generation may gradually begin to demand something different. It may be less interested in the doctrinal battles of the past and more concerned with concrete questions: Can I find a job? Can I preserve my savings? Can I study? Can I start a business? Can I travel? Can I access the Internet? Can I trust the institutions? Can I build a family in my own country?

These questions are more politically revolutionary than they may appear. They shift the legitimacy of the state from the realm of rhetoric to the realm of results. They force governments to measure their success not only by what they proclaim, but by citizens’ ability to live, work, save, build businesses, and hope.

This is where the generational dimension becomes essential. Young people reaching adulthood today have grown up in a digital world. They communicate with people on other continents, access information produced elsewhere, and instantly compare their living conditions with those of other societies. Their understanding of sovereignty is therefore necessarily different from that of previous generations. For them, the national border still exists, but it is no longer the principal boundary of information, culture, commerce, or innovation.

A generation can therefore remain deeply attached to its country while being far less attached to the state’s traditional economic instruments. It can accept a common or foreign currency if that currency allows it to preserve its purchasing power. It can use foreign platforms while remaining strongly attached to its national culture. It can work for a company based abroad while living in its own country. It can see the diaspora not as a loss, but as an extension of the nation.

This evolution requires a new definition of the nation itself. The nation of the twenty-first century can no longer be understood solely as a territory. It must be conceived as a human, economic, cultural, and technological network. Citizens living within the territory and those living abroad can participate in the same national space through financial transfers, knowledge, investment, professional networks, and cultural exchange.

For Venezuela, this transformation is particularly strategic. The diaspora could become one of the principal instruments of reconstruction if the state develops mechanisms capable of mobilizing its financial and intellectual capital. A nation capable of mobilizing several million citizens spread across different countries possesses a form of transnational power that states of the previous century did not have on the same scale.

Technology can make such mobilization possible, but it cannot guarantee it. It must be accompanied by institutions capable of building trust. Expatriates will not invest simply because they come from the country. They will invest if they believe the rules are predictable, their rights are protected, and their projects can succeed. The diaspora therefore cannot be mobilized through patriotism alone. It must be integrated into a credible economic strategy.

The same logic applies to young people who have remained in the country. A development policy that fails to create prospects for this generation would be doomed to reproduce emigration. The objective should not be to persuade young people to stay through patriotic rhetoric, but to give them concrete reasons to stay. The best migration policy is often a development policy.

This idea has broader implications for the Global South. Many countries lose part of their talent every year to North America, Europe, Australia, or Asia’s most dynamic economies. This mobility can be beneficial to individuals, but it becomes problematic when countries of origin have no mechanisms for recovering some of the skills, capital, and networks created abroad. Public policy must therefore move from a logic of retention to one of circulation.

The same shift must take place in education policy. For a long time, development meant increasing the number of graduates. Today, it also means producing skills suited to technological transformation. Universities must learn to work with companies, laboratories, and international networks. Students must be prepared to operate in environments where artificial intelligence will become an everyday tool. Research must be connected to economic needs without sacrificing scientific independence.

Venezuela could make this transition a national priority. A large-scale reconstruction program should regard education as strategic infrastructure. Schools, universities, vocational training centers, and laboratories should be given the same level of priority as roads, ports, and electricity networks. In the knowledge economy, a laboratory can generate as much strategic power as a factory.

This conception also changes the way investment should be assessed. A highway allows goods to move. A digital network allows data to move. A university produces skills. Energy infrastructure powers the entire system. Development therefore becomes a network of interdependent capabilities rather than an accumulation of isolated projects.

This approach is particularly important in a context where financial resources will necessarily be limited. Venezuela will not be able to rebuild all of its infrastructure simultaneously or to the same standard. It will have to establish priorities. Investments that strengthen several capabilities at once should be given preference. Modernizing the electricity grid, for example, simultaneously improves industry, digital services, healthcare, education, and everyday life. Reforming digital administration can improve public services while reducing certain costs and strengthening transparency.

Institutional modernization thus becomes a multiplier of power. It makes it possible to achieve more with the same resources. This is probably one of the major differences between economies that successfully undergo transformation and those that remain trapped in cycles of crisis. Effective institutions reduce the invisible costs of an economy: corruption, uncertainty, administrative delays, legal disputes, lack of information, and poor coordination.

Venezuela must therefore avoid a common mistake during periods of reconstruction: believing that money is enough. Capital can rebuild infrastructure, but it cannot, by itself, rebuild trust. Institutions must be capable of providing investors and citizens with enough predictability to make long-term decisions.

This question is directly connected to dollarization. The use of a strong currency can provide a measure of monetary discipline, but it cannot substitute for institutional discipline. A country can use the dollar and still have an inefficient administration. It can have stable banks and a slow justice system. It can attract capital for several years and then lose it if the rules become unpredictable. A currency can reduce certain uncertainties; it cannot create an institutional culture.

It would therefore be historically dangerous to present the possible adoption of the dollar as a final solution. It should be understood as one decision within a much broader transformation. If it takes place, its real success will depend on what is built around it. The currency can be stable, but the economy must become productive. Prices can be stabilized, but wages must gradually rise through productivity. Capital can return, but it must finance investments that create value. Oil reserves can be developed, but they must contribute to diversifying the economy.

The central question then becomes the development model.

A twenty-first-century Venezuela should no longer seek simply to become a prosperous oil-producing country. It should seek to become an energy, industrial, agricultural, digital, and scientific economy capable of using oil as a lever rather than as an end in itself. This transformation would be difficult, but it would be consistent with the new realities of the global economy.

It would also correspond to the evolution of energy markets. Oil will remain important for a long time, but energy systems are diversifying. Countries that depend exclusively on hydrocarbons therefore face a strategic risk. Venezuela has an opportunity to transform its fossil resources into financing for the transition toward other sectors. The real paradox would be to allow oil revenues to finance consumption alone when they could finance transformation.

The climate question must also be incorporated into this strategy. International investors are placing increasing importance on climate risks, emissions, environmental standards, and clean technologies. Venezuela will therefore have to modernize its energy industry if it is to remain competitive. Reconstruction should not set oil against the energy transition. It should use the revenues and expertise of the energy sector to progressively finance an economy less vulnerable to fluctuations in hydrocarbons.

This approach would also allow Venezuela to reconnect with the major transformations taking place around the world. The United States is seeking to secure its supply chains. China is seeking to strengthen its industrial base and access to resources. Europe is seeking to reduce certain energy and technological dependencies. India is seeking to accelerate its industrialization. The Gulf states are investing in diversification. Venezuela could take advantage of this competition to negotiate partnerships, provided it has a sufficiently clear national strategy.

Foreign policy should therefore be conceived as a high-level economic policy. Every international relationship should be assessed according to several criteria: market access, technology transfer, financing, training, infrastructure, energy security, export diversification, and the strengthening of national capabilities. This approach would allow the country to move beyond symbolic diplomacy and toward results-oriented diplomacy.

The same philosophy should guide Venezuela’s participation in international organizations. Multilateral forums should not be used merely to deliver political speeches. They should serve to secure financing, build coalitions, defend commercial interests, negotiate standards, and participate in major debates on artificial intelligence, climate, energy, finance, and migration.

This transformation of Venezuela’s international role would be one of the most important consequences of possible economic normalization. A stable and predictable country would have greater diplomatic opportunities. It could become a sought-after interlocutor rather than a crisis file. The difference may appear symbolic, but it carries real economic value. International reputation influences the cost of capital, investment attractiveness, trade relations, and the ability to establish partnerships.

The end of the ideological era therefore does not mean the end of politics. It means a transition from politics organized primarily around identity to politics organized increasingly around capability. Identities will remain important, but they can no longer substitute for competence. Slogans can mobilize, but they cannot rebuild a power plant. Speeches about sovereignty can inspire, but they cannot produce a processor. Declarations of independence can be symbolically powerful, but they cannot create jobs.

Twenty-first-century politics will have to reconcile narrative and capability.

This is probably one of the most important lessons of the Venezuelan crisis. A country may possess an exceptional national history, a strong identity, and considerable natural resources. But if its institutions fail to transform those assets into everyday opportunities for its citizens, power remains merely potential.

The new generation does not necessarily demand less patriotism. It demands a different kind of patriotism. A patriotism measured by the quality of schools, the safety of streets, the reliability of electricity, the ability to save, the quality of hospitals, access to technology, the possibility of starting a business, and the ability to build a family without necessarily having to leave the country.

This patriotism of capability could represent one of the strongest responses to the exhaustion of old rhetoric. It does not seek to erase history. It seeks to transform history into responsibility. It regards sovereignty not merely as an inherited right, but as a capacity to be passed on to future generations.

From this perspective, the possible disappearance of the bolívar takes on a much deeper meaning. It could become one of the symbols of a change of era in which a country accepts revising some of the instruments it once associated with its independence in order to preserve the material conditions of its future. This choice would be painful for part of society because the national currency carries an identity dimension. But true national identity does not reside in a banknote. It resides in a society’s ability to protect the dignity of its citizens and prepare the future of its children.

The twenty-first century will not ask states to be perfectly independent. It will ask them to be capable enough to choose their dependencies, intelligent enough to diversify them, and strong enough to negotiate their interests.

It is within this new definition of sovereignty that Venezuela could find a path out of its long-standing crisis. And it is within this transformation, too, that its possible monetary choice could acquire a historical significance far greater than its immediate financial dimension.

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM: TRUMP, CHINA, RUSSIA, IRAN AND THE RECOMPOSITION OF POWER RELATIONS

The transformation of Venezuela cannot be understood without placing it within a much broader international realignment. The Venezuelan monetary question arises at a time when the rules that have organized economic and strategic relations since the end of the Cold War are being subjected to simultaneous pressures. The return of a more transactional American policy under Donald Trump, the structural competition between Washington and Beijing, the war in Ukraine, the relative weakening of Russia’s ability to convert its military power into global economic influence, the persistent confrontation surrounding Iran, the hesitations of several European countries, the repositioning of India and South Korea, the new orientations of the Gulf monarchies, and the growing caution of a large part of the Global South are shaping an international geography in which old alliances are not disappearing, but are becoming more flexible, more conditional, and increasingly oriented toward the defense of immediate national interests.

In this new environment, American foreign policy can no longer be analyzed solely through the traditional prism of liberal internationalism. Trump’s approach introduces a much more directly transactional conception of power. Alliances are assessed according to their cost, partners according to their contribution, trade relations according to their impact on the American economy, and economic instruments according to their ability to produce a political result. Tariffs, sanctions, energy negotiations, relations with NATO allies, and pressure exerted on adversaries should therefore be regarded as different expressions of the same logic: rebuilding America’s bargaining capacity on the basis of the economic, financial, military, and commercial power of the United States.

This evolution does not necessarily mean an American withdrawal from the world. On the contrary, it may produce a different form of international engagement, less based on the promise of a universal order and more focused on the pursuit of bilateral or sector-specific results. Washington can remain present in many regions while asking its partners to bear a greater share of the costs. It can defend its energy interests in the Middle East, strengthen its positions in the Western Hemisphere, harden its trade relations with China, demand more from its European allies, and maintain strategic pressure on Russia. The logic is therefore not one of the disappearance of American power, but of a redefinition of the way it is exercised.

For Venezuela, this transformation is decisive. Caracas is no longer facing a strictly ideological relationship with Washington. It is facing a power capable of simultaneously using sanctions, trade, energy, finance, diplomacy, and political pressure. Venezuelan oil thus becomes not only an economic resource, but also an instrument in a broader negotiation over energy security, migration, sanctions, and regional influence. This explains why Venezuela’s monetary future cannot be separated from the evolution of relations between Caracas and Washington.

China constitutes the other major center of this realignment. Beijing is no longer merely a trading power that purchases raw materials and sells manufactured goods. It has become an industrial, technological, financial, and logistical power capable of offering infrastructure, digital systems, electric vehicles, energy equipment, telecommunications, and financing. Its influence in the countries of the Global South rests precisely on this combination of capabilities.

The Belt and Road Initiative has long been presented as one of the principal expressions of this strategy. It has enabled China to develop infrastructure, strengthen trade relations, and consolidate its influence in numerous regions. But the project is now encountering limits. Some countries are concerned about the weight of their debt, others are reassessing the profitability of certain projects, and several governments are seeking to avoid excessive dependence on a single partner. The BRI is not disappearing, but its model is evolving. Beijing must now contend with stronger geopolitical competition, financial constraints, and states that want to preserve greater room for maneuver.

This evolution is particularly visible in the behavior of major middle powers. India refuses to be locked into automatic alignment with either Washington or Beijing. South Korea is pursuing its industrial and technological interests while strengthening its security relations with the United States. The Gulf countries are simultaneously deepening their relations with Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, and other Asian partners. Brazil seeks to preserve diplomatic autonomy. Indonesia is pursuing a diversification strategy. Turkey is leveraging its geographic position between several spheres of power. This multiplicity of strategies is one of the principal characteristics of the new global geography.

The concept of a bloc is therefore becoming less and less suitable for describing the behavior of many states. The Cold War created relatively rigid alignments. The twenty-first century is producing more partnerships of variable geometry. The same country may participate in military cooperation with the United States, import energy from Russia, trade extensively with China, invest with the Gulf monarchies, and develop technological partnerships with Europe. Such behavior is not necessarily contradictory. It reflects a desire to maximize options.

Venezuela would benefit from understanding this logic. Its foreign policy should no longer be built around the idea of definitively choosing between Washington, Beijing, Moscow, or other centers of power. It should seek to gradually rebuild a bargaining capacity with each of them. This obviously requires respecting the political and legal constraints that accompany certain relationships, but the strategic objective should remain diversification.

Russia offers a particularly instructive case in this regard. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that Moscow retains significant military capabilities and an ability to bear considerable costs, but it has also revealed the limits of its capacity to convert military power into economic and technological influence comparable to that of the United States or China. Sanctions, economic losses, increased dependence on certain Asian partners, and the need to redirect part of its trade have gradually altered Russia’s position within the international system.

It would nevertheless be mistaken to conclude that Russia is disappearing as a power. Its nuclear arsenal, permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, energy resources, defense industry, and geography still give it considerable strategic importance. What is weakening, rather, is its ability to impose a complete international architecture around its own model. Russia can disrupt, influence, deter, and negotiate, but it has fewer means than the United States or China to offer a global economic and technological model.

This distinction is important for Venezuela. Moscow may remain an energy or military partner, but Caracas would benefit from avoiding excessive dependence on a power whose own resources are heavily committed to the war. A long-term reconstruction strategy should prioritize partnerships capable of providing capital, technology, markets, and skills over several decades.

Iran presents another dimension of this realignment. The confrontation between Tehran and Washington demonstrates that economic sanctions, military capabilities, regional networks, and energy resources are now closely interconnected. Iran has developed adaptation strategies that allow it to maintain certain economic capabilities despite sanctions, but this resilience does not mean the absence of costs. The Iranian economy remains subject to significant constraints, and its international technological integration remains limited in several areas.

The Iranian experience thus shows that a policy of resistance can preserve a certain degree of political autonomy, but it does not automatically guarantee development. It illustrates a fundamental difference between surviving in a hostile environment and building an economy capable of advancing rapidly. For Venezuela, this distinction should be central. The ability to withstand external pressure is not sufficient. It is also necessary to build the internal conditions that make such pressure less effective.

Syria represents another revealing example of the transformation of strategic geography. After years of war and fragmentation, the country has become one of the spaces where American, Russian, Turkish, Iranian, Israeli, and Arab interests intersect. Syria demonstrates how old ideological boundaries are no longer sufficient to explain contemporary realities. Actors simultaneously pursue objectives related to security, energy, migration, territory, influence, and reconstruction.

For Venezuela, the lesson is clear: a weakened state becomes a space in which external powers may seek to defend their interests. The best protection against such fragmentation is therefore not solely military. It is institutional, economic, and diplomatic. A state capable of functioning, producing, negotiating, and guaranteeing predictable rules has a much greater capacity for resistance than a state dependent on a handful of foreign partners.

The question of Cuba also fits into this evolution. For a long time, Cuba embodied a form of ideological resistance to the American order. But the economic realities of the twenty-first century are also forcing Havana to seek pragmatic room for maneuver. Economic difficulties, energy needs, migration, and financial constraints make it necessary to diversify relations. The political model may remain distinct, but economic reality requires forms of adaptation.

This evolution in Cuba is important for the Caribbean as a whole. The region can no longer be regarded merely as the backyard of a great power. It is becoming a space where American, Chinese, European, Latin American, and Asian interests intersect. Ports, telecommunications, energy infrastructure, logistics chains, tourism, migration, and marine resources are acquiring growing strategic importance.

Venezuela occupies an exceptional geographic position in this context. Its access to the Caribbean Sea and its proximity to North America, South America, and the Atlantic could enable it to become an economic bridge between several regions. But this position will produce benefits only if infrastructure is modernized. Geography offers an opportunity; it does not automatically create power.

Trump’s tariff policy toward China adds another dimension to this transformation. Tariffs are not merely an instrument of trade protection. They have become a tool of industrial policy and economic security. Washington seeks to reduce certain dependencies, encourage domestic production, and prevent strategic sectors from being entirely dominated by Chinese companies. Beijing is responding with its own economic and industrial instruments.

This competition nevertheless creates a paradoxical effect for countries of the Global South. On the one hand, it creates opportunities. Companies may seek new production sites, supply chains may be relocated, and certain countries may attract investment because of their intermediate position. On the other hand, it increases pressure on states to choose certain standards, suppliers, or partners.

The risk for emerging economies is to become arenas for tensions between great powers without building their own capabilities. A country may receive a Chinese factory, an American company, European financing, and Korean equipment without ever developing a sufficiently strong domestic industry to benefit sustainably from these investments. The issue, therefore, is capacity transfer.

Venezuela will have to avoid this situation. Every international partnership should be assessed not only according to the amount of capital brought in, but also according to what it leaves behind. How many engineers will be trained? How many local companies will participate in the production chain? What technologies will be transferred? What research centers will be created? What markets will be opened to national producers? What export capacity will remain once the initial project has been completed?

These questions constitute a new generation of economic diplomacy. They require states to negotiate less as aid recipients and more as strategic partners. The Global South does not necessarily lack resources. It often lacks bargaining capacity, technical preparation, and institutional continuity.

This weakness also explains why some international projects have produced results below expectations. Infrastructure can be built quickly but remain underused if it is not integrated into a broader economic strategy. A port can be modern but lack sufficient cargo. A power plant can generate electricity but fail to be connected to a reliable grid. An industrial park can be inaugurated without having companies capable of producing competitively within it.

Modern power therefore rests on the integration of systems. Energy, transportation, telecommunications, education, finance, and industry must function together. This is precisely why major geopolitical projects must be evaluated not only in terms of infrastructure, but in terms of ecosystems.

China’s BRI has understood this logic in certain respects by combining ports, railways, energy, telecommunications, and financing. The United States is now developing its own industrial and technological policies. Europe is seeking to strengthen certain strategic supply chains. India is also building its own capabilities. International competition is therefore becoming a competition between ecosystems.

Venezuela must enter this competition with a coherent national strategy. It cannot simply wait for great powers to come and propose projects. It must define what it wants to become. If it wishes to become a major energy hub, it must modernize its infrastructure. If it wants to become a Caribbean logistics platform, it must modernize its ports and networks. If it wants to develop artificial intelligence, it must invest in electricity, data, and training. If it wants to diversify its agriculture, it must modernize logistics and processing chains.

This strategy could also give Venezuela a new position in its relations with the United States. Washington might regard an economically stabilized, productive, and relatively predictable Venezuela as a more useful partner than a Venezuela constantly immersed in confrontation. The relationship could then gradually shift from a logic of sanctions toward a logic of economic negotiation, without necessarily implying complete political convergence.

This is where the question of oil once again becomes central. American energy security no longer depends exclusively on Venezuela, but Venezuelan resources may nevertheless have value under certain market conditions. The country’s ability to increase production, modernize its infrastructure, and comply with international standards could therefore become an element of its diplomatic power.

Venezuela could then use its energy as a diplomatic currency in the broad sense, not by replacing the dollar, but by using its energy capacity to negotiate investments, technologies, and market access. This strategy would be far more intelligent than using oil merely as an instrument of confrontation.

China could also play an important role in this reconstruction, but Caracas should avoid reproducing excessive dependence. Relations with Beijing should be based on economically viable projects, sufficient transparency, and partner diversification. China could provide industrial technologies, equipment, and capital. The United States could offer access to certain markets, technologies, and financial services. Europe could contribute in the fields of energy, the environment, training, and infrastructure. India could offer partnerships in digital services, pharmaceuticals, and certain technologies. South Korea could contribute its industrial and technological experience. The Gulf countries could contribute to financing and logistics. Such a policy would not be an artificial balancing game. It would be a rational diversification strategy.

This approach could also transform the debate over the BRICS. The organization has long been presented as the embryo of a new economic order capable of reducing Western dominance. Its expansion demonstrates that it possesses a certain degree of attractiveness. But its heterogeneity limits its ability to become a coherent bloc. The interests of China, India, Brazil, Russia, and the other members do not always converge. Some want to reduce dependence on the dollar; others wish to continue accessing Western markets. Some seek reform of global governance; others prioritize regional interests.

It would therefore be premature to regard the BRICS as a replacement for the Western international system. Their importance lies more in their ability to create additional spaces for negotiation and encourage diversification of economic relations. For countries of the Global South, the principal value may be to have several platforms available rather than to choose a new exclusive architecture.

Venezuela could benefit from this situation provided it avoids ideological instrumentalization. Its objective should be to use the institutions available to obtain investment, markets, technologies, and room for maneuver. It should not seek to belong to a camp as a matter of principle.

This philosophy is consistent with the generational transformation discussed earlier. Younger generations are generally more accustomed to a plurality of networks. They can work for an American company, watch Korean content, use Chinese technologies, study with European resources, trade with India, and live in a Latin American country. Their world is already multipolar in practice.

Foreign policy must catch up with this social reality. The great change of the twenty-first century may therefore be less the emergence of a new Cold War than the gradual disappearance of the possibility of imposing a clear separation of the world into two camps. Competition between Washington and Beijing is real and profound, but many states refuse to become mere instruments of this rivalry. They seek to maintain relations with both powers while developing their own capabilities.

This trend could intensify if the technological divide continues to widen. Countries that master artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, and digital infrastructure will possess greater power. Others will have to negotiate their access to these technologies. In this context, the strategic autonomy of the Global South will depend less on its political declarations than on its investments in education and technology.

Venezuela therefore faces a historic choice. It can attempt to rebuild its old model in a profoundly transformed international environment, or use the current crisis to build a model adapted to the new geography of power. In the first case, monetary stabilization could remain superficial. In the second, it could become the first element of a much more ambitious national reconstruction.

The question of the dollar is then no longer merely a question of currency. It becomes a question of Venezuela’s place in an international system in which power is no longer measured solely by monetary reserves, tanks, or ideological speeches. It is measured by the ability to connect energy, technology, institutions, human capital, diplomacy, and markets.

The world taking shape is not necessarily more peaceful. It is probably more complex. It offers more opportunities to states capable of playing several cards, but it punishes more severely those that remain locked into a single dependency. Flexibility becomes a form of power.

For Venezuela, this flexibility could be the key to reconstruction. Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Seoul, Brussels, Moscow, the Arab capitals, and Latin American neighbors should not be regarded as substitutes for one another. They should be viewed as different components of a network of relations that Caracas must learn to leverage.

The true break with the twentieth century then becomes clear. The old system often required states to choose their side. The new system primarily requires them to build their capacity to choose.

And it is precisely this capacity for choice that could become, for Venezuela and for much of the Global South, the most realistic definition of sovereignty in the twenty-first century.

VENEZUELA, THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA FACING THE NEW GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

The transformation of Venezuela can only produce its most lasting effects if it is understood within its immediate regional environment. The country does not exist in an abstract space of global geopolitics. It belongs to a changing Caribbean, to a Latin America that is itself seeking to redefine its room for maneuver, and to an American hemisphere in which relations among Washington, Mexico City, the countries of Central America, the major South American economies and the Caribbean island states are becoming increasingly interdependent. Any potential monetary reform in Venezuela, whatever its final form, would therefore have consequences extending well beyond the country’s national borders. It could alter trade flows, investment patterns, migration, energy relations and diplomatic balances across the region.

For a long time, Latin America was analyzed as a relatively stable periphery of the international system, subject to dominant United States influence but periodically shaped by projects of regional autonomy. That reading is becoming increasingly insufficient. China has become a major trading partner for several Latin American economies. Europe retains a significant commercial, financial and institutional presence. India is beginning to strengthen its economic relations with certain countries in the region. The Gulf monarchies are showing growing interest in agriculture, energy, logistics and infrastructure. Latin American states themselves are seeking to diversify their partners without abandoning their historic relations with Washington.

This diversification does not mean that the United States has lost its importance. Geographic proximity, trade flows, investment, migration, financial transfers, regional security and market integration continue to sustain a structural relationship between Latin America and the American economy. What is changing is the ability of Latin American governments to have other options. The region is no longer compelled to look toward a single economic center. It can now compare multiple sources of financing, markets, technology providers and diplomatic partners.

This new freedom of choice represents an opportunity, but it can also create new vulnerabilities. Diversification protects a country only when it is accompanied by a strategy. A state that replaces a single dependency with several poorly managed dependencies has not necessarily gained sovereignty. It may simply have multiplied its points of vulnerability. Genuine autonomy consists in building sufficient domestic capabilities so that external partnerships become accelerators of development rather than substitutes for national development.

Venezuela lies at the heart of this challenge. Its energy potential, geographic position and territorial scale give it particular importance in the Caribbean and South America. Yet that importance remains largely potential as long as the country lacks the infrastructure, institutions and stability necessary to convert its geographic advantages into economic power.

Geography could nevertheless become one of its principal strategic assets. Venezuela possesses an extensive Caribbean coastline and lies close to the continent’s major economic spaces. In theory, this position would allow it to develop ports, logistics corridors, energy platforms, maritime services and commercial connections linking South America, the Caribbean and North America. In a world where supply chains are increasingly seeking resilience and proximity, this position could acquire new value.

But geography is never enough. A territory can be ideally situated and remain marginal if its ports are inefficient, its roads inadequate, its electricity grid unstable and its customs procedures unpredictable. Conversely, a country can transform an average geographic position into an exceptional advantage through high-performing infrastructure. Singapore is one of the best-known examples. Panama has built part of its contemporary power around its logistical role. The United Arab Emirates have transformed their geographic position into a global platform for transportation, finance and trade. Venezuela could pursue its own trajectory, adapted to its geography and resources.

This perspective should lead Caracas to regard the Caribbean not as a periphery, but as a strategic space. Caribbean ports, maritime routes, subsea energy infrastructure, telecommunications cables, financial services and tourism flows now form an economic architecture far more significant than it might initially appear. The Caribbean Sea is simultaneously a commercial, energy, migratory, environmental and geopolitical space.

Proximity to the region’s island states could also offer Venezuela new opportunities. Small Caribbean economies face particular challenges: dependence on imports, climate vulnerability, high energy costs, limited domestic markets and exposure to fluctuations in tourism. A stabilized Venezuela could become an important energy and commercial partner for some of them. It could also develop logistics services, agricultural trade and university cooperation.

Such relations should, however, be conceived in a new spirit. The era when regional relations were determined primarily by ideological affinities or political alliances is gradually receding. Caribbean states need partners capable of making concrete contributions to their energy security, economic development, climate resilience and trade integration. Venezuela could respond to that demand if it rebuilds its productive capacity.

Energy represents its most obvious advantage. But that advantage should be used cautiously. A sustainable regional energy policy can only rest on transparent contracts, reliable infrastructure and sufficient production capacity. Venezuela could once again become a major energy supplier to the Caribbean, but it should avoid turning that relationship into an instrument of political dependency. The strongest form of regional influence would be one derived from economic reliability rather than political pressure.

This distinction would be particularly important in relations with neighboring countries. A lasting regional power is not one that demands loyalty from its neighbors. It is one whose neighbors have an interest in maintaining stable relations because those relations provide concrete benefits. Energy, infrastructure, trade, services and academic cooperation can create this form of positive interdependence.

Colombia naturally occupies a central place in this reflection. The border between the two countries is one of the spaces where economic, migratory, security and commercial questions intersect with the greatest intensity. Venezuelan reconstruction could gradually transform this border from an area of vulnerability into an area of economic integration. But this would require institutions capable of controlling flows, combating illicit economies and facilitating legal trade.

The relationship with Colombia also demonstrates why Venezuelan reconstruction cannot be treated solely as a matter of domestic policy. A more stable Venezuelan economy would alter the economic calculations of its neighbors. Colombian companies could seek new markets. Workers could move differently. Logistics networks could be reorganized. Investment could shift. Border infrastructure could acquire renewed importance.

The same reasoning applies to Brazil. The Amazonian border, energy exchanges, agriculture, infrastructure and environmental issues create a set of common interests extending far beyond political differences. An economically reconstructed Venezuela could develop partnerships with Brasília in agriculture, energy, logistics, research and environmental protection. Brazil, in turn, could benefit from a more stable and integrated neighbor.

Latin America could thus become one of the first arenas in which Venezuela would test its new foreign policy. Rather than seeking to impose ideological influence, Caracas could build influence based on the real economy. Trade, energy, infrastructure and knowledge would gradually generate a capacity for attraction more durable than diplomatic campaigns.

This evolution would be consistent with the broader transformation of the international system. States are no longer seeking only to establish political alliances. They are seeking to build economic ecosystems. A privileged relationship becomes genuinely strategic when it creates value chains, shared infrastructure, investment flows and human networks.

The monetary question fits directly into this architecture. If Venezuela were to adopt the dollar on a lasting basis, or another strongly stabilized monetary regime, its trade relations could become more predictable. Regional companies could reduce part of their foreign-exchange risk. Investment could become easier. Trade could expand more rapidly. But such stabilization would produce its effects only if other barriers to commerce were also reduced.

It is therefore necessary to avoid confusing monetary integration with economic integration. A stable currency can facilitate trade, but it does not automatically create infrastructure, businesses or markets. Competitiveness always depends on productivity, logistics, institutional quality and human capital.

This reality should guide the reconstruction of Venezuela’s industrial sector. For decades, dependence on oil reduced incentives to develop a diversified industrial base. Reconstruction should gradually reverse that logic. Energy revenues could finance the modernization of the food, chemical, pharmaceutical, metallurgical, mechanical and digital industries. The objective would not be to produce everything the country consumes, but to create sectors capable of exporting.

Agriculture should occupy a particularly important place. An economy with significant agricultural potential but a heavy dependence on food imports remains vulnerable. Venezuela could seek to develop modern agriculture combining mechanization, irrigation, data, artificial intelligence, agricultural research and logistics chains. Such a transformation would also have a significant social dimension because it could create employment beyond the major urban centers.

This territorial diversification is essential to prevent economic reconstruction from benefiting only a few metropolitan areas. Venezuela possesses several regions capable of developing different areas of specialization. Some could focus on agriculture, others on energy, logistics, industry, tourism or digital services. A smart national strategy should seek to connect these hubs rather than concentrate all growth around Caracas.

Urban reconstruction should also be integrated into this strategy. Urban infrastructure determines a significant part of productivity. Transportation, water, sanitation, electricity, housing and digital services constitute the invisible foundations of the economy. A city where citizens spend several hours a day in transit or experience frequent power interruptions cannot achieve the same level of productivity as a city with reliable infrastructure.

Venezuela should therefore regard urban reconstruction as an economic policy. Investments in public transportation, electricity networks and digital infrastructure can simultaneously improve quality of life and productivity. Such an approach could also reduce some of the territorial inequalities that drive internal and external migration.

Migration is perhaps one of the most sensitive dimensions of this reconstruction. Millions of Venezuelans live abroad, representing a substantial loss of human capital but also a potential reserve of skills, capital and networks. If the national economy stabilizes, some members of the diaspora could gradually invest or return. But their return will not happen automatically.

People who have rebuilt their lives elsewhere will not easily abandon educational, professional and institutional systems that function. They will return if they find sufficiently attractive conditions in Venezuela. The return of the diaspora must therefore be understood as the result of national transformation, rather than as a separate policy.

It would also be mistaken to assume that all expatriates must physically return. Venezuela could benefit from their international presence. Professionals living in the United States, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Colombia or elsewhere can contribute to the national economy through investment, consulting, distance education, commercial partnerships and entrepreneurship. The nation can thus become larger than its territory.

This conception is particularly suited to the new digital economy. Physical borders continue to shape public policy, but flows of knowledge and capital can cross borders at extraordinary speed. A country that knows how to organize its diaspora through professional platforms, investment funds and academic networks can transform mass emigration into a strategic advantage.

The Caribbean provides an exceptional testing ground for this approach. Many Caribbean societies have large diasporas and economies deeply connected to external markets. They have developed various forms of circulation for capital, skills and people. Venezuela could draw lessons from these experiences. But the new Caribbean political economy will not be limited to migration and trade. Climate will become increasingly central. Hurricanes, droughts, rising sea levels, flooding and changes in agricultural patterns will force states to invest in resilience. Port, energy and urban infrastructure will have to be designed to withstand increasingly difficult conditions.

Venezuela has a relative advantage over several small islands because its continental territory provides greater space and geographic diversity. But this territorial depth should not create a false sense of security. Coastal areas, energy infrastructure and major cities remain exposed to different risks. Reconstruction must therefore incorporate climate resilience from the outset.

This issue could also become an area of regional cooperation. Caribbean countries have an interest in sharing weather data, early-warning systems, disaster-management technologies and emergency infrastructure. Venezuela could participate in these networks and develop regional expertise in risk management.

Technology could play a major role in this transformation. Satellites, drones, environmental sensors, artificial intelligence systems and data platforms now make it possible to anticipate certain risks more effectively. But once again, technology is useful only when institutions know how to use it. A society that possesses data but cannot interpret it remains vulnerable.

This reality reinforces the need for a national science policy. Venezuela will have to rebuild its universities and research centers. Research should not be regarded as a prestige expenditure, but as strategic infrastructure. Countries that control their own scientific capabilities are better positioned to understand their resources, anticipate risks and develop solutions adapted to their territory.

Latin America already possesses several internationally recognized university centers. Venezuela could seek to rebuild networks with them. Regional collaboration can be particularly valuable because it allows costs and expertise to be shared. A Venezuelan university does not need to become globally renowned immediately to be useful. It must first be capable of training enough competent professionals and participating in international scientific networks.

This policy should be accompanied by a profound reform of vocational education. Reconstruction will require technicians, engineers, electricians, maintenance specialists, IT professionals, logisticians, agronomists, healthcare professionals and managers. An economy cannot function solely through university graduates. Technical occupations will be essential to rebuilding infrastructure.

The new political economy of Venezuela will therefore have to restore the value of skilled work. In many countries, education systems have created an artificial hierarchy between university education and technical training. Yet industrial and digital transformation requires both. A data center requires engineers, but also technicians capable of maintaining its equipment. A power plant requires highly specialized professionals, but also thousands of skilled workers. This approach could help reduce youth unemployment and create new forms of social mobility. Young people must be able to access training that genuinely corresponds to labor-market needs. Reconstruction should not merely create temporary jobs linked to major construction projects. It must create careers.

This distinction is fundamental. A construction project can employ several thousand people for a few years. A competitive industry can create jobs for several decades. A high-quality university can educate several generations. Digital infrastructure can generate new economic activity long after it has been installed. National strategy must therefore prioritize investments whose effects extend beyond the first cycle of spending.

Venezuela could also make greater use of its tourism potential. The Caribbean is one of the world’s major tourism regions, yet the country exploits only part of its potential. Its landscapes, coastlines, mountains, historic cities and cultural diversity could support a significant tourism sector. But modern tourism requires much more than beaches. It requires infrastructure, security, services, air connections, a credible international image and digital capacity.

Tourism development should therefore be designed as an integrated services industry. It could create employment, stimulate local agriculture, support transportation, encourage environmental conservation and strengthen exchanges with the diaspora. But it should avoid a model of tourist enclaves isolated from the rest of the economy. The real objective should be to create local value chains.

The same logic applies to the maritime economy. Venezuela could further develop port services, fisheries, aquaculture, ship repair, logistics and activities related to marine resources. In a world where maritime routes are becoming increasingly strategic, the blue economy could become a new pillar of diversification. This orientation would also have a geopolitical dimension. A country capable of controlling and developing its maritime infrastructure has greater capacity to participate in regional trade. Ports are no longer merely points of entry and exit for goods. They are integrated logistics platforms connected to international value chains.

Venezuelan reconstruction could therefore be conceived around several major economic corridors linking energy, agriculture, industry, ports, cities and digital networks. The objective would be to create a system rather than accumulate projects. Each investment should reinforce the others.

Such a vision would also make it easier to understand the significance of monetary reform. A stable currency is not the final destination. It is an infrastructure of trust that allows other economic infrastructures to function. If businesses can anticipate their costs, workers preserve their savings and investors assess their projects with greater confidence, society has a stronger foundation for reconstruction. But that foundation must quickly be used to create productivity.

Venezuela could thus become a case study in the transition from a rent-based economy to a capability-based economy. The transition would be difficult, but possible if energy revenues are used to finance education, infrastructure and diversification. The question is not how to replace oil immediately. It is how to use oil to gradually finance a Venezuela that will depend less and less on it.

This strategy would also have an important regional dimension. A more diversified and stable Venezuela could contribute more to Latin American growth. It could import more regional goods, export energy and processed products, participate in industrial value chains and create new markets for its neighbors. Venezuelan reconstruction could therefore become a regional growth engine.

Conversely, a Venezuela that remains chronically unstable would continue to impose costs on the entire region. Migration, illicit economies, border tensions and energy instability would not simply disappear with time. Stabilizing the country is therefore a regional interest, not merely a national issue.

This reality could encourage a new Latin American diplomacy. Instead of treating Venezuela solely as a political problem, neighboring countries could contribute to a regional reconstruction strategy. Regional financial institutions, universities, businesses and governments could participate in joint projects. Such an approach would also reduce the risk that reconstruction becomes entirely dependent on a single external power.

The twenty-first century offers precisely the possibility of building such networks. Latin American states do not need to wait for a major power to propose an architecture for them. They can create their own mechanisms of cooperation. The question is whether they possess the political will and institutional capacity required to do so.

Venezuela could play an important role in this evolution if it accepts the need to redefine its power. Its future greatness should not be measured solely by the quantity of oil it produces, the size of its territory or the strength of its diplomatic rhetoric. It should be measured by its ability to become an energy, logistics, industrial, agricultural, scientific and digital hub for the Caribbean and South America.

Such an ambition would be far better suited to the new international reality. It would allow the country to engage with the United States without depending exclusively on Washington, with China without depending exclusively on Beijing, with Europe without becoming dependent on Brussels, with India and South Korea without reducing its foreign policy to a series of isolated partnerships, and with its Latin American neighbors through genuine economic integration.

Venezuela could then move from a logic of confrontation to a logic of positioning. The distinction is essential. A confrontational foreign policy seeks primarily to resist the influence of others. A positioning strategy seeks to make its own country sufficiently useful, stable and competitive that others have an interest in maintaining good relations with it.

This is probably the most durable form of power in the contemporary world.

Venezuela therefore does not need to become a hegemonic power again in order to regain influence. It needs to become a power of connection. An energy power capable of supplying partners, a logistics power capable of linking markets, an agricultural power capable of exporting, a digital power capable of providing services, a human power capable of mobilizing its diaspora, and a diplomatic power capable of engaging simultaneously with multiple centers of influence.

This conception would finally allow geography, economics and sovereignty to be reconciled. Venezuela already possesses some of the elements required. What it primarily lacks is the institutional capacity to articulate them.

The historic question is therefore no longer whether Venezuela possesses enough resources to rebuild itself. It is whether it can transform those resources into a system of power. That distinction could determine the country’s future far more decisively than the choice of a currency.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL DIVIDE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE NEW FRONTIER OF SOVEREIGNTY

The transformation of Venezuela and the restructuring of the international order inevitably lead to a question that could determine the hierarchy of nations over the coming decades: who will control the technologies that now shape production, knowledge, finance, security, and public decision-making? The twenty-first century will not be defined solely by competition over territories, natural resources, and political systems. It will also be defined by competition over technological capabilities. The real divide between nations may gradually shift from access to capital toward access to knowledge, and then from knowledge toward the ability to produce and control the digital infrastructures that transform knowledge into power.

This transformation is particularly significant for countries of the Global South because it is unfolding at a time when their technological gaps with the leading powers remain substantial. The United States possesses an exceptional ecosystem combining universities, private capital, technology companies, digital infrastructure, research centers, and military capabilities. China has an immense industrial base and is rapidly expanding its own capabilities in artificial intelligence, telecommunications, robotics, electric vehicles, and several strategic sectors. South Korea remains a major technological power in semiconductors, electronics, and advanced industry. Japan retains considerable industrial and scientific expertise. Europe possesses significant scientific, industrial, and regulatory capabilities, even as it continues to seek to narrow certain gaps in digital platforms and computing infrastructure. India, meanwhile, is seeking to transform its vast pool of talent into technological and industrial power.

Alongside these centers of power, much of Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia continue to face structural constraints: inadequate digital infrastructure, high connectivity costs, weak research capacity, brain drain, limited access to technology financing, dependence on imported hardware and software, shortages of advanced skills, and fragile institutions capable of supporting innovation. The risk is that a new form of dependency may emerge, one that is far deeper than traditional trade dependencies.

A nation can import a machine without necessarily sacrificing its strategic autonomy. It becomes far more vulnerable when it depends entirely on another country to understand the technologies essential to its economy, protect its data, maintain its networks, develop its digital infrastructure, or train its specialists. In this new environment, technological sovereignty does not mean producing absolutely everything domestically. It means possessing sufficient knowledge, skills, and institutional capabilities to avoid becoming entirely captive to an external supplier.

This distinction will be decisive for Venezuela. The country obviously cannot compete directly with the United States or China in every technological field. Such an ambition would be unrealistic and financially inefficient. Instead, it will need to identify the sectors in which it can build its own expertise, those in which it must establish partnerships, and those in which it can simply import solutions available on the global market.

The first condition will be electricity. Artificial intelligence, data centers, telecommunications, and digital infrastructure all depend on abundant, stable, and affordable energy. A country that cannot guarantee reliable electricity cannot build a competitive digital economy. Rebuilding Venezuela’s electricity grid should therefore be regarded as a technological policy as much as an energy policy. Every reliable megawatt can contribute to digital education, public services, telecommunications, businesses, and industry.

The second condition will be connectivity. Internet access should no longer be regarded simply as a communications service. It is an economic infrastructure comparable to roads, ports, and electricity networks. A company located in a remote region can reach international markets if it has a reliable connection. A student can pursue international training without leaving their city. A doctor can consult a specialist located hundreds of kilometers away. A public administration can provide services remotely. A small business can sell its products abroad.

The digital divide is therefore also a territorial divide. If only the major cities have high-quality connectivity, technological investment risks reinforcing existing inequalities. Digital policy must instead enable rural and peripheral regions to participate in the national economy.

The third condition will be education. Artificial intelligence will not simply replace certain jobs; it will transform the way a large share of workers perform their jobs. Administrative, legal, financial, medical, industrial, journalistic, and educational professions will increasingly be influenced by tools capable of processing enormous volumes of information and producing results within seconds.

This transformation does not mean that human beings will become irrelevant. It means that the value of human work will change. Skills that enable people to formulate problems, verify information, understand context, make decisions, establish trust, or assume responsibility will become even more important. Artificial intelligence can produce an answer, but it does not, by itself, bear the political or moral responsibility for that answer.

The education system must therefore evolve. Teaching only memorized knowledge will become increasingly insufficient. Students will need to learn how to analyze, compare, verify, interpret, and intelligently use digital tools. They will also need to understand their limitations. A society in which citizens use artificial intelligence systems without knowing how to verify their results becomes vulnerable to disinformation, automated errors, and manipulation.

For Venezuela, this transformation represents both an opportunity and a risk. The country has a relatively young population, a significant diaspora, and a university tradition that could be rebuilt. It could seek to become a regional center for digital services, training, and software development. Unlike heavy industry, a digital company can sometimes export services without requiring an enormous physical infrastructure. This sector could therefore provide a particularly attractive path toward economic diversification.

But the digital economy must not be reduced to the development of a handful of start-ups. A genuine technological strategy must encompass public administrations, schools, hospitals, banks, industrial companies, farmers, and local governments. Digital transformation must be systemic.

Public administration could become one of the first areas of modernization. Digitized, interoperable, and secure administrative procedures could reduce delays, improve transparency, and lower certain costs. The digitization of registries, tax systems, customs procedures, and social services could also generate more reliable data on the national economy.

Data itself is becoming a strategic resource. In a modern economy, data makes it possible to understand behavior, anticipate needs, improve services, and optimize infrastructure. But its use must be governed by strict rules concerning privacy, security, and individual rights. A digital society without effective data governance can easily become a surveillance society.

Venezuela will therefore have to avoid two extremes: a lack of regulation, which exposes citizens and businesses, and overregulation, which suffocates innovation. The objective should be to build a legal framework sufficiently clear to protect rights while allowing companies and researchers to experiment.

Artificial intelligence also raises questions of language and culture. Major digital systems are often trained primarily on content produced in the languages most widely represented on the Internet. Latin American countries must therefore develop greater linguistic and cultural resources of their own. Spanish-language corpora, local data, and cultural specificities must be represented in the technologies used by their populations.

For Venezuela, this means that an artificial intelligence strategy should include the creation of digital resources in Spanish adapted to the Latin American context. Applications in education, healthcare, agriculture, energy management, and public services could be developed with international partners while preserving a national capacity for oversight and control.

This issue is also important for cultural sovereignty. A society that depends entirely on algorithms developed elsewhere risks gradually having its representations, references, and priorities shaped by systems that do not necessarily understand its context. The objective is not to reject foreign technologies, but to participate in their adaptation.

Latin America has significant potential in this regard. The region has millions of young graduates, high-quality universities, and several technology centers. It also possesses markets large enough to support the emergence of regional companies. Latin American cooperation in artificial intelligence could reduce certain costs and create shared resources.

Venezuela could participate in this dynamic rather than attempting to build everything on its own. Cooperation with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and other regional economies could make it possible to develop joint programs in research, training, and entrepreneurship. Regional integration could thus acquire a new technological dimension.

This evolution would be particularly relevant in agriculture. Artificial intelligence can help analyze soils, optimize irrigation, anticipate certain crop diseases, improve logistics, and reduce waste. For a country seeking to strengthen food security and diversify its economy, these applications could have a direct impact. Energy also offers major opportunities. Digital systems can optimize production, distribution, and maintenance of electricity networks. They can help identify losses, anticipate certain failures, and improve demand management. Energy modernization and digital transformation should therefore be pursued together.

Healthcare is another area where technology could generate substantial benefits. Digital tools can facilitate remote consultations, medical-record management, image analysis, and medicine distribution. But here again, technology must remain at the service of trained professionals. Artificial intelligence should not automatically become a substitute for medical judgment.

The financial system could also be profoundly transformed. Monetary stabilization and possible dollarization would create a different environment for banks and businesses. Financial technologies could facilitate payments, improve financial inclusion, and reduce certain transaction costs. But they could also create new cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity must therefore be regarded as a component of national sovereignty. A country that digitizes its services without protecting its infrastructure becomes vulnerable to attacks. Banks, hospitals, electricity networks, ports, and government administrations can be targeted by criminal or state actors. Venezuela should develop national capabilities for prevention, detection, and response.

This issue also extends beyond national borders. Cyberattacks move between countries, just as data and capital do. Regional cooperation on cybersecurity would therefore be particularly valuable. Latin American countries could share information on threats, train specialists, and develop common standards.

Artificial intelligence is also transforming the labor market. Countries with workforces capable of using these tools will have a significant advantage. Those unable to adapt their education systems risk experiencing a new form of structural unemployment. The challenge is not simply to produce computer scientists. It is to make the entire workforce capable of operating in an environment in which artificial intelligence becomes increasingly ubiquitous.

This transformation could be particularly important for young Venezuelans. A young developer, designer, financial analyst, or digital marketing specialist can work for a foreign company while remaining physically in their own country. This creates a new avenue for growth that did not exist in traditional industrial economies. Venezuela could export intellectual services without necessarily exporting its citizens.

But this opportunity once again depends on the quality of infrastructure and education. Without reliable electricity, fast Internet, and appropriate training, demographic potential remains largely untapped.

The technological divide may therefore become one of the greatest threats facing the Global South over the coming decades. Wealth gaps can gradually be reduced. Technological gaps, by contrast, can become exponential because new technologies increase the productive capacity of the economies that master them. A company that effectively uses artificial intelligence can produce more with fewer resources. A country that controls advanced technologies can accelerate its development more rapidly than one that depends entirely on external capabilities.

This dynamic could produce a new international hierarchy. The most powerful nations will not simply be those with the greatest natural resources or the largest armies. They will be those capable of combining energy, capital, data, research, industry, and human talent. Venezuela possesses some of these resources, but they are currently insufficiently connected. Its energy resources are abundant. Its population possesses significant potential. Its diaspora constitutes a global network. Its territory offers considerable natural resources. Its geographical position is strategic. What is missing is the ecosystem capable of converting these assets into technological and economic power.

Reconstruction should therefore focus on this integration. Oil could finance electricity infrastructure. Electricity could support data centers. Data centers could support digital services. Universities could train specialists. Companies could transform these skills into products and services. Exports could generate foreign currency. Revenues could then be reinvested in research and education.

This is how a rent-based economy could gradually become a capabilities-based economy. This transformation also represents a political challenge. Governments must accept that technological power cannot be entirely centralized. Innovation requires spaces for freedom, autonomous universities, companies capable of taking risks, and researchers able to work without excessive political pressure. Technology rarely flourishes in an environment where every initiative depends on a centralized political decision.

Venezuela’s technological modernization must therefore be accompanied by institutional modernization. Trust, intellectual property, academic freedom, legal certainty, and access to financing are conditions for innovation. Without them, talent will leave for elsewhere.

The diaspora once again becomes essential. Venezuelans already working in technology companies, universities, banks, and foreign laboratories could become bridges to global ecosystems. They could participate in training programs, invest in businesses, create partnerships, and transfer expertise. The diaspora would no longer be merely a consequence of the crisis. It could become an instrument of reconstruction.

This possibility could also transform the relationship between migration and sovereignty. The twenty-first century allows a nation to maintain economic ties with its citizens even when they live elsewhere. The question is therefore no longer solely how to bring expatriates home, but how to build a sufficiently connected nation to benefit from their global presence.

Within this framework, possible monetary stabilization would take on a new meaning. A stable currency could facilitate transactions, but the digital economy could also expand opportunities for financing, payments, and trade. Financial technologies could reduce certain geographical barriers. But this modernization would have to be properly regulated to prevent new forms of dependency or fraud.

Venezuela could thus become a laboratory for digital reconstruction in the Caribbean and Latin America. This ambition does not mean that it would immediately become a global technology hub. It means that it could use the crisis to rebuild its economy according to twenty-first-century standards rather than simply restoring the structures of the twentieth century.

That is probably the fundamental distinction.

Restoring the Venezuela of the past would mean seeking to recover a functioning oil economy, a stable currency, and institutions capable of managing growth. Rebuilding twenty-first-century Venezuela would mean using energy, geography, and human capital to create a diversified, digital, productive economy integrated into global networks.

The first strategy could allow the country to emerge from crisis. The second could allow it to change eras.

THE END OF AN IDEOLOGICAL ERA: FROM THE 20TH-CENTURY WORLD OF BLOCS TO THE 21ST-CENTURY WORLD OF CAPABILITIES

The transformation of Venezuela cannot be understood in its full depth if it is interpreted solely as a monetary, economic, or diplomatic development. Behind the questions surrounding the bolívar, the dollar, sanctions, oil, relations with Washington, or ties with China lies a much more consequential transformation: the gradual exhaustion of a political grammar inherited from the 20th century. For decades, a large part of Latin American and international political debate was organized around relatively clear ideological oppositions, pitting socialism against capitalism, left against right, sovereignty against interventionism, Western alignment against non-alignment, and state-directed economies against market economies. These categories played a genuine historical role and continue to explain certain political attitudes. Yet they are no longer sufficient to describe a world in which power increasingly flows through value chains, data, semiconductors, energy infrastructure, digital platforms, financial networks, autonomous military capabilities, satellite systems, artificial intelligence technologies, and control over knowledge. A nation can today declare itself sovereign while remaining almost entirely dependent on foreign technologies, embrace the market while heavily subsidizing strategic industries, defend multilateralism while pursuing protectionist trade policies, or move closer to one major power while simultaneously negotiating with several others. Contemporary reality has become far more complex than the ideological categories of the past.

It is precisely this complexity that gives a potential economic and monetary reorientation of Venezuela particular historical significance. If Caracas were to permanently abandon the bolívar as its principal instrument of monetary confidence, or adopt a monetary architecture heavily based on a foreign currency, such a decision should not be interpreted merely as a technical measure designed to combat inflation or stabilize transactions. It could also express a deeper realization: that traditional ideological constructions are no longer sufficient to guarantee sovereignty when they fail to generate the material capabilities required to sustain that sovereignty. The paradox is considerable. A state can vigorously assert its political independence while being unable to guarantee monetary stability, continuity of its electricity network, availability of medicines, modernization of its infrastructure, competitiveness of its companies, or education and training for its younger generation. In such a context, sovereignty ceases to be a proclamation and becomes a question of capability.

This evolution marks an important departure from part of the political thinking of the previous century. In the 20th century, sovereignty was often conceived in terms of territorial control, diplomatic independence, military capacity, and ideological choice. These dimensions remain essential in the 21st century, but they are now joined by a new architecture of dependencies. A nation that does not control its digital infrastructure depends on those who do. A nation without reliable energy capabilities depends on those able to supply it with energy or the technologies required to produce it. A nation whose education system cannot generate advanced skills depends on the outside world for engineers, doctors, researchers, and specialists. A nation that controls no significant part of its value chains remains dependent on decisions made in foreign economic centers. Contemporary sovereignty is therefore multidimensional: it rests as much on the capacity to produce, innovate, finance, protect, and transmit knowledge as it does on the capacity to make political decisions.

This transformation also helps explain why the new geography of power no longer corresponds precisely to the ideological maps of the past. The United States remains the leading financial, technological, and military power in the international system, but its foreign policy is evolving in an environment in which competition with China, the war in Ukraine, tensions with Iran, the Venezuelan question, the situation in Syria, relations with NATO countries, and American tariff policy are reshaping strategic priorities. Washington increasingly appears willing to use trade, tariffs, market access, sanctions, energy, and financial instruments as tools of power. This no longer fully corresponds to the image of a liberal global order operating primarily through relatively predictable economic rules. It reveals a system in which commercial power and geopolitical power are once again becoming intertwined.

American tariff policy toward China illustrates this transformation particularly clearly. International trade is no longer regarded solely as a mechanism for increasing overall economic efficiency. It has become an instrument of national security. Supply chains, semiconductors, batteries, critical minerals, telecommunications technologies, electric vehicles, and digital infrastructure are now assessed through the lens of strategic dependence. States increasingly seek to determine not only where they can purchase goods most cheaply, but also from whom they can continue to obtain them in times of crisis. This logic is profoundly changing the functioning of globalization. The world is not necessarily returning to autarky, but it is entering a period of securitized globalization, in which the pursuit of efficiency is increasingly confronted with the pursuit of resilience.

The implications for countries of the Global South are considerable. For several decades, many of them built their development strategies on the assumption that globalization would allow them to attract capital, export raw materials, participate in international production chains, and progressively benefit from technology transfers. That strategy remains possible, but the conditions have changed. Major powers are increasingly seeking to control sectors considered strategic. Sensitive technologies are subject to restrictions. Foreign investments are being subjected to greater scrutiny. Value chains are being reorganized around political and security considerations. Middle powers must therefore learn to negotiate their position within a system in which economics can no longer be separated from geopolitics.

Venezuela is directly confronted with this new reality. Its oil is an economic resource, but also a diplomatic and strategic instrument. Its geographical position gives it particular importance in the Caribbean. Its relations with China, Russia, Iran, and other partners have been shaped by years of confrontation with Washington. But the central question for the 21st century will be less about which bloc Venezuela moves toward than about how it can avoid becoming permanently dependent on any bloc. Genuine autonomy would not consist of replacing dependence on the United States with dependence on China, Russia, or another power. It would consist of possessing sufficient domestic capabilities and sufficiently diversified partnerships to negotiate with each of them without becoming captive to any.

This logic also helps explain the limitations of the BRICS project when it is presented as the automatic construction of an alternative order to the West. The group’s expansion has undoubtedly increased its visibility and economic weight. It brings together countries with substantial resources, large populations, major industrial or energy capabilities, and different geopolitical ambitions. Yet the diversity of national interests is also its principal limitation. China and India do not share identical strategic objectives. The energy interests of major producers do not always correspond to those of importers. Russia’s priorities are not identical to those of Brazil or South Africa. Their political systems, economic structures, and relationships with Washington and Europe differ profoundly. It is therefore more realistic to view the BRICS as a platform for diversifying global power than as a homogeneous ideological bloc destined to replace the Western order.

This distinction is essential to understanding India’s behavior. New Delhi is not simply seeking to join one camp against another. It is pursuing a policy of strategic autonomy, simultaneously using its relationships with the United States, Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and other Asian economies to strengthen its own interests. This strategy is probably one of the most important manifestations of 21st-century geopolitics. India does not want to choose permanently between different centers of power because it intends to become one of those centers itself. It therefore seeks to preserve sufficient freedom to negotiate according to specific issues, sectors, and national interests.

South Korea offers another illustration of this transformation. Its power rests not primarily on an international ideological discourse, but on concrete industrial and technological capabilities. Semiconductors, electronics, automobiles, batteries, shipbuilding, telecommunications, and advanced manufacturing have transformed the country into a strategic actor within global value chains. Seoul must, of course, manage its relations with the United States, China, and Japan, as well as the constraints of the Korean Peninsula, but its room for maneuver rests first and foremost on the value of its capabilities. This experience recalls a fundamental truth: in a competitive international system, the strongest guarantee of autonomy is often the ability to produce something that others need.

This new conception of power also changes Russia’s position. The war in Ukraine has profoundly affected its economy, relations with Europe, military posture, and capacity for certain forms of international projection. Russia retains energy resources, considerable military capabilities, scientific expertise, and significant geopolitical influence, but the conflict has also revealed the cost of a strategy based on prolonged confrontation. Increased dependence on certain partners, sanctions, human and material losses, transformations in energy markets, and the need to redirect part of its trade demonstrate that military power cannot indefinitely be separated from the economic capacity required to sustain a strategic effort.

Iran likewise finds itself in a situation in which military, energy, and ideological power must be confronted with the reality of economic and technological constraints. Tensions with Washington can no longer be interpreted simply as another repetition of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century. They are part of a broader competition involving energy security, trade corridors, technology, military capabilities, and regional influence. The Middle East itself is becoming an arena in which states are increasingly seeking to diversify their partnerships. Relations among the Gulf countries, China, India, the United States, Europe, and other actors demonstrate that rigid alliances are gradually giving way to more transactional relationships.

Syria represents another laboratory for this transformation. Its recent evolution demonstrates how profoundly regional balances can change when external powers reassess their priorities. For decades, the Middle East was interpreted primarily through the prism of rivalry among Washington, Moscow, Tehran, and their respective partners. But the new economic geography introduces additional variables: reconstruction, energy corridors, infrastructure, trade, investment, border control, food security, and market access. A society seeking to emerge from prolonged conflict must necessarily rebuild economic capabilities, and that reconstruction creates new opportunities for negotiation among major powers.

Venezuela therefore finds itself within a global system in which ideologies continue to exist, but are increasingly being overtaken by calculations of capability. Governments may continue to employ the language of revolution, socialism, nationalism, or liberalism, but they must all answer the same concrete questions: how to finance their economies, how to secure electricity, how to feed their populations, how to create jobs, how to develop infrastructure, how to protect data, how to educate their young people, and how to gain access to the technologies of tomorrow. Political language may vary according to regime. Material constraints, however, are becoming increasingly universal.

This is precisely why a potential Venezuelan monetary decision could acquire a symbolic significance greater than its strictly economic dimension. If a government historically committed to a rhetoric of monetary sovereignty were to acknowledge that a foreign currency could temporarily or permanently provide greater stability than the national currency, such a decision would represent a striking contradiction with certain doctrines of the 20th century. Yet it could also represent a form of political pragmatism. The real question would then be whether the abandonment of a symbolic instrument is compensated by the construction of genuine capabilities. Giving up a symbol of sovereignty becomes progress only if the decision helps rebuild the material conditions of future autonomy.

This distinction must be taken seriously because dollarization is not a magic solution. It can reduce monetary risk and contribute to restoring confidence, but it can also limit certain economic policy instruments and create dependence on the availability of dollar liquidity. It guarantees neither growth, nor social justice, nor industrialization, nor infrastructure modernization. It can stabilize the monetary framework without transforming the productive system. The real historical rupture would therefore not simply be the adoption of a foreign currency. It would lie in the ability to use renewed stability to progressively rebuild national institutions, productivity, and capabilities.

This question leads directly to the generation now coming of age. Young people in the 21st century do not inhabit the same intellectual universe as generations shaped during the Cold War. They have grown up with the Internet, social media, digital platforms, smartphones, global cultural exchange, and now artificial intelligence. Their relationship to territory, work, information, politics, and identity is different. They can simultaneously belong to a local, national, and global community. They can work for a foreign company without leaving their country. They can learn from a university located on the other side of the world. They can create a company whose potential market is global from the moment it is founded.

This generation does not necessarily reject the idea of sovereignty, but it may conceive of it differently. For them, being sovereign does not necessarily mean producing everything consumed within the national territory or closing borders to external influences. It may mean possessing enough capabilities to choose, negotiate, and participate. A technologically competent nation can be deeply open to the world while retaining decision-making capacity. A technologically dependent nation can be legally independent while remaining subject to considerable external constraints.

This generational difference could gradually transform political cultures across Latin America. Younger generations may be less impressed by grand ideological declarations if they do not produce tangible improvements in their living conditions. They may accept patriotic discourse, but they will demand jobs, quality education, effective public services, reliable digital connectivity, genuine security, and the opportunity to build their future. They may remain attached to their national identity while rejecting older forms of intellectual or economic closure.

Generational change does not mean the disappearance of history. It means that history ceases to be sufficient to govern the present. A nation cannot indefinitely ask its young people to live within the intellectual conflicts of their grandparents. It must offer them a political architecture suited to their own time.

This may be one of the deepest dimensions of the Venezuelan crisis. The country must not merely rebuild roads, hospitals, factories, and a currency. It must rebuild the relationship between the state and a generation that has experienced the crisis as a defining reality. Many young Venezuelans have grown up amid instability, migration, loss of purchasing power, deterioration of public services, and family separation. Their conception of the state will necessarily be shaped by this experience. Restoring their trust will require more than speeches. It will require demonstrating, in everyday life, that institutions can once again become predictable.

This demand for trust is precisely what connects the monetary question to the generational question. A stable currency means that tomorrow’s savings can retain a reasonably predictable value. An efficient administration means that a diploma, permit, or contract can be recognized. Credible justice means that an investment can be protected. Strong education means that a child can hope for a different trajectory from that of their parents. Stability is therefore not merely a macroeconomic variable. It is a human experience.

Venezuela could therefore transform its crisis into a generational transition if its reforms succeed in restoring these fundamental forms of trust. But such a transformation will require a new conception of politics. Politics can no longer be merely a competition to control the state. It must become a competition to demonstrate which vision is capable of producing greater national capabilities. Citizens should be able to compare governments according to the quality of schools, reliability of electricity, productivity of businesses, safety of cities, quality of infrastructure, and capacity for innovation.

Such an evolution could also change the relationship between ideology and pragmatism. Pragmatism does not imply the absence of values. It means that values must be translated into institutional results. Social justice requires public services capable of protecting the most vulnerable. Patriotism requires an economy capable of retaining talent. Sovereignty requires productive and technological capacity. Freedom requires institutions capable of protecting rights. Sustainable development requires infrastructure compatible with environmental limits. The great political values of the 21st century will therefore have to be assessed through their capacity to produce concrete transformation.

This approach also makes it possible to move beyond another illusion inherited from the previous century: the idea that a country must necessarily belong to one camp in order to exist strategically. The contemporary world is too interdependent to function solely according to this logic. The United States needs Asian partners. China needs external markets and resources. Europe seeks diversified supply chains. India is developing relations with multiple centers of power. Gulf countries invest across several regions. Latin America is likewise seeking to multiply its options. This reality creates a more fragmented system, but also one that is more open to intermediate strategies.

Venezuela could take advantage of this situation provided it moves beyond a logic of permanent confrontation. It could negotiate with Washington on energy and trade, with China on infrastructure and investment, with India on energy and technology, with South Korea on industry and value chains, with Europe on standards, investment, and training, with Brazil and Colombia on regional integration, and with Caribbean countries on energy, logistics, and climate resilience. Such diplomacy would not be a diplomacy of surrender. It would be a diplomacy of diversification.

The same logic could apply to relations with Cuba. Changes in the approach of Cuban leaders and the economic constraints facing the island also demonstrate that economic realities ultimately impose their own limits on political systems. Cuba possesses recognized human capabilities in certain sectors, particularly health and some scientific disciplines, but its economy continues to face considerable structural constraints. A new relationship between Cuba and its regional partners could be based more heavily on economic, scientific, and health cooperation than on the ideological solidarities of the past.

Such an evolution would be significant for the Caribbean as a whole. The region could gradually move from a politics of belonging to a politics of converging interests. States would retain their identities and political systems, but would increasingly seek cooperation on problems that directly affect their populations. Climate change, energy, food security, migration, digital infrastructure, tourism, and health are precisely the areas in which ideological borders become less relevant.

The new economic and political geography of the Caribbean could therefore become one of the laboratories of global transition. The region is located close to the United States, in contact with Latin America, connected to Europe, and increasingly linked to Asian and Middle Eastern capital. Its importance could increase as major powers seek to secure trade routes, energy infrastructure, and supply chains.

Venezuela occupies a distinctive position within this space. Its territory, resources, and maritime frontage give it the means to become an important actor in this emerging architecture, but only if its national capabilities are rebuilt. Geography creates an opportunity. It does not automatically create power.

The break with the 20th century should therefore not be understood as a rejection of every idea from the past. Certain values remain fundamental: justice, freedom, solidarity, sovereignty, national dignity, and collective responsibility. What must change is the way these values are translated into contemporary realities. Sovereignty can no longer be solely monetary. Power can no longer be solely military. Development can no longer be solely industrial. Security can no longer be solely territorial. Diplomacy can no longer be solely ideological. Education can no longer be based primarily on memorization. Competitiveness can no longer be separated from technology.

The 21st century is therefore imposing a new political grammar in which capability becomes the common language of nations. Countries will continue to defend different ideologies, identities, and visions of the world, but their actual place in the international system will increasingly depend on what they are capable of producing, financing, innovating, protecting, negotiating, and transmitting.

For Venezuela, this transition could become a historic opportunity, provided that a potential monetary reform is not regarded as the conclusion of the crisis, but as one of the first instruments of a much broader reconstruction. If monetary stability restores savings, savings can finance investment. If investment rebuilds infrastructure, infrastructure can support productivity. If productivity rises, revenues can finance education and research. If education and research advance, the country can develop technological capabilities. If those capabilities become exportable, they can strengthen reserves, employment, and economic autonomy. It is this chain of transformation that would give the monetary rupture its historical meaning.

The central question, therefore, would no longer be whether Venezuela abandons or preserves a monetary symbol of the 20th century. It would be whether it succeeds in progressively replacing a primarily declaratory form of sovereignty with sovereignty grounded in real, measurable, and transferable capabilities. A strong national currency can contribute to that sovereignty, but it is only one component. A foreign currency may temporarily provide stability that the state is not yet capable of guaranteeing, but it must not become a permanent substitute for productive reconstruction. In either case, the true measure of success will remain the same: the country’s ability to produce more, learn faster, innovate, retain its talent, attract investment, and provide its citizens with a credible prospect for the future.

The true end of an era would therefore not be announced by a political speech, a change of flag, or the abandonment of a currency. It would become visible when societies gradually ceased to organize their future around the categories that structured the previous century and began to think in terms of skills, interdependence, technology, resilience, human capital, and capacity for action. It is within this silent transition, far deeper than the visible ideological confrontations, that part of the new geography of global power is already being shaped.

THE NEW ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY OF TRUMP: TRADE, ENERGY, SANCTIONS AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF CENTERS OF POWER

Venezuela’s transformation cannot be fully understood without examining the evolution of American policy under Donald Trump and, more broadly, the way Washington is redefining the relationship between trade, security, energy, and power. The return of a more transactional conception of foreign policy is not simply a matter of style or a change in diplomatic vocabulary. It reflects a deeper transformation of the international system, in which the United States is seeking to preserve its superiority while reducing certain industrial, technological, and commercial dependencies that it increasingly regards as strategic vulnerabilities. This orientation is reshaping the relationship with China, changing American expectations of European and Asian allies, redefining the use of tariffs and sanctions, and restoring energy to a geopolitical role that, in new forms, recalls some of the major confrontations of the twentieth century.

The distinctive feature of this new period is that Washington no longer appears willing to separate economic policy from foreign policy as sharply as it once did. Tariffs, access to the American market, technological restrictions, financial sanctions, energy negotiations, and security commitments are increasingly liable to be used as complementary instruments. This approach can generate significant tensions with the traditional partners of the United States, but it also reflects a perception that has become increasingly central in Washington: in a world where China possesses extraordinary industrial power, where supply chains can be disrupted by geopolitical crises, and where certain technologies are becoming decisive for national security, economic dependence can no longer be treated as a matter separate from sovereignty.

American tariff policy toward China must be understood within this broader logic. Tariffs are not merely an instrument designed to protect certain American industries. They express a wider concern about deindustrialization, import dependence, trade deficits, supply-chain resilience, and the ability of the United States to maintain a sufficiently strong industrial base in strategic sectors. Yet this approach contains a fundamental contradiction: tariffs can protect certain activities in the short term, but they can also raise costs for businesses and consumers, trigger retaliatory measures, and relocate supply chains rather than fully bring them back home. The strategic question, therefore, is not simply whether tariffs are effective or ineffective, but under what conditions they can be combined with an industrial, technological, and educational policy ambitious enough to produce genuine productive reconstruction.

This American challenge has direct implications for Venezuela. If Washington regards energy as a strategic component of its foreign policy, Venezuela possesses an asset that few countries in the region can match. Yet this resource can no longer be analyzed solely through the lens of oil revenues. Venezuelan oil lies at the intersection of several questions: American energy security, Chinese influence, relations with the Caribbean, market stability, sanctions, foreign investment, and the reconstruction of the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela’s strategic value will therefore depend as much on how much oil it can produce as on the ability of its government to create an environment in which investment, infrastructure, and trade can function over the long term.

This situation creates a particularly interesting paradox. The United States may regard Venezuela’s economic stability as useful for certain energy and regional objectives while maintaining political concerns regarding governance, migration, security, and institutions. Caracas, for its part, may seek to preserve its sovereignty while requiring capital, technology, and access to markets in which the United States possesses decisive influence. The relationship therefore cannot be reduced to a confrontation between two political wills. It rests on a complex form of interdependence in which each side possesses instruments of pressure but also interests that make selective cooperation possible.

It is precisely this transactional logic that could reshape Venezuela’s strategy. Under the old ideological framework, Caracas could view its relationship with Washington primarily as a political confrontation and seek to offset that pressure through closer relations with external powers. Under the new framework, a more pragmatic strategy would consist of separating the different issues. Venezuela could negotiate energy with Washington, infrastructure with certain Asian partners, investment with Europe, industrial cooperation with South Korea, trade with India, and regional integration with Brazil, Colombia, and the Caribbean. Such diversification would not eliminate political disagreements, but it would prevent any single partner from determining the entire trajectory of the national economy.

China obviously occupies a particularly important position in this equation. Its economic rise has profoundly altered the choices available to countries of the Global South. Beijing has become a major commercial, industrial, and financial partner for many emerging economies. Chinese companies are involved in port, energy, railway, telecommunications, and digital infrastructure projects across several continents. China therefore represents a potential source of capital, technology, and markets for Venezuela. But here again, the strategic question is not whether Venezuela should choose between Washington and Beijing. It is how to build a relationship with China without turning that relationship into a new structural dependency.

The debate surrounding the Belt and Road Initiative illustrates this evolution. For more than a decade, the Chinese initiative represented one of the principal expressions of Beijing’s international economic expansion. Ports, railways, power plants, telecommunications systems, and infrastructure projects allowed China to extend its economic footprint. Yet the international environment has changed. Several countries have reassessed their commitments, some projects have encountered financial or political difficulties, and governments have become more attentive to contractual conditions, debt, and local economic returns. The BRI is not necessarily disappearing, but its era of rapid and seemingly unlimited expansion appears to have given way to a more selective phase in which the profitability, security, and strategic value of projects are being examined more closely.

For Venezuela, this evolution should be regarded as a lesson. Foreign infrastructure should not be evaluated solely according to its initial cost or the speed at which it can be built. Its contribution to national productivity, compatibility with existing infrastructure, financing conditions, transfer of skills, maintenance requirements, data ownership, and the ability of domestic companies to participate in value chains must also be assessed. A port financed and built by a foreign company can be extremely valuable if its operation stimulates a diversified national economy. It becomes far less transformative if it functions as an enclave disconnected from the rest of the country.

Venezuela’s relationship with China should therefore be placed within a broader strategy of capacity transfer. Caracas should not merely request infrastructure. It should seek training, university partnerships, joint research centers, industrial programs, local maintenance mechanisms, and the integration of national companies into major projects. The real value of a technological partnership lies less in the object delivered than in the capabilities it leaves behind.

This requirement becomes even more important in the digital sphere. Telecommunications infrastructure, cloud networks, payment systems, data centers, and artificial intelligence platforms can create dependencies far more durable than a road or a building. Physical infrastructure can be inspected, maintained, and gradually replaced. Digital architecture can incorporate invisible dependencies into software, standards, updates, data, and equipment. Venezuela will therefore need to pay particular attention to technological sovereignty when negotiating future partnerships.

India represents a particularly interesting potential partner because it is itself seeking to build technological autonomy while maintaining relationships with several centers of power. Its international policy demonstrates that a major country can seek to maximize its room for maneuver rather than permanently placing itself within a single bloc. For Caracas, the lesson is clear: partner diversification has value only if it is accompanied by a sufficiently coherent national strategy to determine what the country wants to obtain from each partner.

South Korea could play a different but equally important role. Its strength in semiconductors, electronics, automobiles, shipbuilding, and certain industrial technologies corresponds precisely to the needs of an economy seeking to rebuild its productive base. Venezuela obviously has no interest in attempting to reproduce the Korean model in its entirety. Instead, it could seek to attract South Korean companies into targeted sectors while combining foreign investment, vocational training, and the creation of local suppliers. Such a strategy would be far more effective than a simple policy of importing finished products.

Europe could also play a significant role. The European Union possesses considerable normative and scientific power, as well as important capabilities in infrastructure, energy, the environment, health, and education. A European relationship with Venezuela could be built around standards, clean technologies, institutional modernization, universities, and long-term investment. Europe represents more than a market. It can also provide a source of standards that could help Venezuela improve the quality of its economic and industrial institutions.

Brazil, however, occupies a distinctive position because it is simultaneously a neighbor, a major regional power, a significant industrial economy, and an actor capable of engaging with several global centers. Venezuela’s economic reconstruction could create substantial opportunities for cooperation with Brasília in agriculture, energy, infrastructure, healthcare, industry, and the Amazon. Closer economic ties with Brazil could also help reintegrate Venezuela into South American value chains.

Colombia could play an equally decisive role on another scale. The two countries share a border, mobile populations, and longstanding commercial ties. An improvement in Venezuela’s economic situation could reduce some migration pressures and create new markets for Colombian companies. Border infrastructure could become trade corridors rather than spaces dominated by clandestine activities. A more stable economic relationship between Caracas and Bogotá would therefore have consequences extending far beyond bilateral trade.

The new American economic geography could also reshape relations with Mexico. The proximity of the Mexican market to the United States, the reorganization of North American industrial supply chains, and the search for new production capacity within the United States’ immediate neighborhood give Mexico exceptional importance. Nearshoring can create opportunities for several economies in the hemisphere, but it requires infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and institutional stability. Venezuela will not immediately become a competitor to Mexico in North American industrial supply chains, but it could seek to benefit from this reconfiguration by developing complementary sectors.

This possibility demonstrates why Washington’s tariff policy must be observed beyond the Sino-American relationship. When the United States imposes trade barriers on certain Chinese imports or seeks to secure its supply chains, the consequences can spread toward Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Companies may relocate certain activities. Investment may seek new destinations. Countries may attempt to improve their access to the American market. The economic geography of the Western Hemisphere can therefore evolve gradually under the influence of decisions taken in Washington and Beijing.

Venezuela will have to learn to read these movements without waiting for opportunities to emerge spontaneously. Modern industrial policy consists precisely in identifying international transformations before they become obvious. If certain value chains gradually move away from Asia toward Western markets, Caracas should determine which segments it can enter. If global demand for energy products changes, the country must prepare its infrastructure. If demand for critical minerals increases, it must develop processing capacity. If digital services become increasingly exportable, it must invest in the skills required to compete.

This capacity for anticipation is often lacking in rentier economies. High revenues from a natural resource can create the impression that the future is already secured. Yet technological and geopolitical cycles can rapidly change the value of existing advantages. Oil itself will not suddenly disappear from the global economy, but its role, markets, and technological requirements are evolving. Producers must therefore prepare multiple scenarios rather than rely on a single trajectory.

The energy question is consequently becoming more complex. Venezuela possesses enormous oil resources, but the global energy system is evolving under the influence of climate policies, electric vehicles, renewable technologies, energy efficiency, and new forms of production. Oil will remain important, but its strategic value will also depend on producers’ ability to reduce costs, improve infrastructure, and diversify revenues. Venezuela must therefore use its oil advantage while it remains available, while actively preparing the economy for the post-dependence era.

Such a strategy could include the development of natural gas, renewable energy, hydropower, energy efficiency, and storage technologies. But it should also incorporate petrochemicals and energy services in order to increase the value added generated within the country. The objective would not be to abandon oil, but to gradually move beyond dependence on the export of crude oil.

This evolution would be particularly important in relations with the United States. A diversified Venezuelan economy would be a more valuable partner than an economy entirely dependent on oil. It could import more American goods, develop reciprocal investment, attract companies, and participate in regional production chains. The bilateral relationship could then gradually move from a logic of sanctions and confrontation toward a logic of mutual economic interests, even if political differences remained.

Such a transformation, however, would only be possible if Caracas understands a fundamental reality: Washington’s new geopolitics is not necessarily built around ideological trust. It functions increasingly around measurable interests. A country becomes strategically useful when it contributes to energy security, regional stability, border security, supply chains, or markets. This approach may be criticized on moral or political grounds, but it must be understood in order to be negotiated effectively.

Venezuela could therefore seek to transform its geographic position into strategic value. Its proximity to the United States, its Caribbean coastline, its energy resources, and its links with South America give it a rare combination of advantages. But to convert that combination into influence, the country will have to become predictable. Investors, trading partners, and foreign governments must be able to anticipate rules, contracts, taxes, capital-transfer conditions, and investment protections.

Predictability could become one of Venezuela’s most valuable resources in the twenty-first century. In a world marked by geopolitical tensions, companies seek territories capable of offering a degree of stability. Countries that succeed in creating such stability can attract capital even when they do not possess the same resources as major powers. Institutional trust therefore becomes a competitive advantage.

This question leads directly back to the monetary debate. A stable currency can contribute to predictability, but it is only one part of the equation. An investor does not look only at the exchange rate. Investors also examine the justice system, taxation, security, infrastructure, the ability to repatriate profits, workforce quality, and political stability. Monetary stabilization must therefore be accompanied by institutional stabilization.

Trump’s new economic geography could thus, paradoxically, offer Venezuela an opportunity to move beyond its old patterns of confrontation, but only if Caracas accepts the need to transform its foreign policy. The United States itself is seeking to negotiate differently with its partners. China is seeking to secure its supply chains. India is seeking to strengthen its autonomy. South Korea is protecting its strategic industries. Europe is seeking to reduce certain dependencies. Gulf countries are investing across multiple regions. Russia is attempting to reorganize its trade. All these actors are adapting their strategies to a world in which interdependence is no longer regarded as a sufficient guarantee of stability.

Venezuela must do the same.

The objective is not to choose between Washington, Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, Seoul, or Brussels. It is to build national capacity that allows the country to engage with all these centers of power without becoming an instrument of any one of them. This orientation would represent a profound break with the geopolitical reflexes of the previous century. It would replace the logic of blocs with the logic of networks, the logic of belonging with the logic of converging interests, and the logic of permanent confrontation with the logic of strategic negotiation.

This transformation does not mean that conflicts will disappear. Rivalries among major powers will continue, sometimes with considerable intensity. Wars, sanctions, energy crises, and trade tensions will continue to reshape markets. But middle powers will increasingly need flexibility rather than automatic alignment. Their strength will depend on their ability to preserve options.

This is perhaps one of the great lessons of the new global geography: in a fragmented system, power lies not only in the size of a country, but also in the number and quality of options available to it. A country capable of changing suppliers, diversifying markets, mobilizing multiple sources of financing, training its own talent, and producing certain essential technologies possesses greater strategic freedom than a country dependent on a single partner.

For Venezuela, this freedom will have to be built methodically. It will begin with monetary and institutional stability, continue through energy and industrial reconstruction, incorporate education and technology, and then extend to commercial and diplomatic diversification. Foreign policy can no longer be designed separately from economic policy. Every international agreement should be evaluated according to the capacity it adds to the country.

This approach would give the monetary question a much broader dimension. If Venezuela chooses a dollar-based monetary regime, it should simultaneously seek to strengthen its productive capacities so that monetary dependence does not become permanent economic dependence. If, over the longer term, it succeeds in rebuilding the conditions for a credible national currency, that possibility should result from a productive economy and strong institutions rather than from a political decision intended merely to restore a symbol.

True monetary sovereignty cannot be decreed. It is built in factories, universities, banks, laboratories, ports, businesses, electrical grids, and families that can finally save without fearing that their work will be destroyed by inflation.

This is why Trump’s new geography should not be regarded solely as a threat to Venezuela. It can also serve as a revealer. It forces Caracas to understand that the international system will no longer operate according to the same rules and that old ideological certainties are no longer sufficient. The United States is seeking to secure its value chains. China is seeking to preserve its markets and technological rise. India is seeking to become an autonomous power. South Korea is protecting its industrial capabilities. Europe is seeking to strengthen its resilience. Gulf countries are diversifying their economies. Russia is attempting to sustain a prolonged confrontation. Countries of the Global South are seeking new room for maneuver.

In this environment, Venezuela can no longer wait for the international system to offer it a place. It must build a position that several actors will have an interest in preserving. This evolution could become one of the most important elements of national reconstruction. A middle or regional power does not need to dominate in order to be influential. It must become sufficiently useful, sufficiently reliable, and sufficiently capable that its exclusion carries a cost for others.

Only under these conditions can Venezuela’s geography, long perceived as merely a territorial fact, become a genuine geography of power.

CURRENCY AS A SOCIAL CONTRACT: DOLLARIZATION, TRUST AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF A PRODUCTIVE STATE

The Venezuelan monetary question cannot ultimately be reduced to a choice between the bolivar and the dollar, any more than it can be understood solely through inflation statistics, international reserves, or monetary-policy decisions. A currency is, above all, an institution of trust. It allows individuals to preserve part of their labor in the form of savings, enables companies to calculate costs and investments, allows banks to extend credit, permits governments to prepare budgets, and enables successive generations to transmit part of the wealth they have created. When a currency ceases to perform these functions properly, the problem immediately extends beyond the financial sphere. It enters households, changes behavior, accelerates preference for foreign assets, transforms relationships between workers and employers, disrupts savings, and eventually alters the psychological relationship between citizens and the state. That is why any Venezuelan decision to officially adopt the dollar or substantially strengthen its role should not be presented as a mere technical operation. It would constitute a response to a crisis of confidence affecting the currency, institutions, and the state’s ability to safeguard the value of people’s work.

In a normally functioning economy, currency performs an almost invisible task. Citizens work today knowing that part of what they earn can be used tomorrow. Companies invest because they can reasonably anticipate their costs and revenues. Banks lend because they operate within an environment stable enough to assess risks. Contracts can be concluded over several years because units of account remain relatively predictable. When that stability disappears, the entire economic architecture becomes shorter-term. Households seek to spend quickly, companies reduce their investment horizons, transactions shift toward more stable currencies, and economic agents devote an increasing share of their energy to protecting themselves against uncertainty rather than producing. Prolonged inflation therefore does not merely destroy purchasing power. It destroys economic time because it forces society as a whole to devote substantial resources to defending itself against instability.

This dimension helps explain why the dollar has gradually established itself in Venezuelan economic life despite the formal existence of the bolivar. When citizens begin using a foreign currency to save, set certain prices, conduct major transactions, or preserve their wealth, they are revealing less an ideological preference than a rational response to risk. Monetary history shows that populations rarely voluntarily adopt a foreign currency because they wish to abandon their national identity. They generally do so when they seek a store of value they consider more reliable. Parallel currency then becomes a mirror of deteriorating institutional trust.

Official dollarization could therefore be interpreted as the legal recognition of an economic reality that is already partially established. But such recognition would not eliminate the structural difficulties that produced the monetary crisis. It could improve nominal stability, reduce the risk of uncontrolled money creation, and facilitate certain economic decisions, but it would not automatically create new factories, new jobs, new infrastructure, or new skills. The danger would be to confuse stabilization of the unit of account with reconstruction of the real economy. A more stable currency can create the conditions for recovery. It cannot, by itself, produce that recovery.

The distinction between monetary stability and economic development must therefore lie at the heart of any serious analysis. An economy can be dollarized and remain poor, unequal, or unproductive. It can also be monetarily stable while remaining heavily dependent on imports. Currency is only one element of a much broader system. The decisive question is whether the chosen monetary regime allows other institutions to function and whether the state uses the stability obtained to strengthen the country’s productive capacity.

In Venezuela’s case, this second stage would probably be the most difficult. After years of economic contraction, loss of human capital, infrastructure deterioration, and mass migration, the country must rebuild several sectors simultaneously. The energy system must be modernized, the oil industry must regain operational capacity, transportation infrastructure must be rehabilitated, agriculture must increase productivity, public services must regain reliability, and the education system must be reconnected to the needs of a contemporary economy. Monetary stabilization could facilitate this reconstruction, but it could never substitute for it.

This reality leads to a more fundamental question: what should the Venezuelan state become after the crisis? Throughout much of the twentieth century, the oil state occupied a central role in redistributing hydrocarbon revenues. The model could function as long as revenues were sufficiently large and institutions were capable of transforming part of the rent into services and investment. But when production collapsed, when sanctions restricted access to certain markets, and when economic institutions weakened, the model became far more vulnerable. The problem, therefore, is not only oil. It is the problem of a state whose financial capacity depended heavily on an extremely concentrated source of revenue.

Reconstruction should seek to create a productive state rather than merely a distributive state. A productive state is not a state that owns every company. It is a state that creates the conditions allowing a diversified economy to produce more. It builds essential infrastructure, guarantees legal security, protects competition, finances certain strategic research, develops human capabilities, and establishes rules predictable enough for entrepreneurs to take risks. Its objective is not systematically to replace the private sector, but to make possible a sustainable expansion of national productive capacity.

This conception is particularly important in a dollarized economy. When the state no longer possesses a fully autonomous national monetary policy, it must become much more disciplined in its fiscal policy. It cannot rely on money creation to finance deficits indefinitely. Public revenues must therefore be more closely aligned with real production, taxation must become more effective, and public spending must be evaluated according to its economic and social return. The constraint can be difficult, but it can also constitute a useful discipline if accompanied by institutional reform.

Dollarization can therefore function as a constraint forcing the state to abandon certain fiscal conveniences. But that constraint can become destructive if authorities lack sufficient revenues or instruments to respond to crises. The central question is therefore not merely whether dollarization reduces inflation. It is whether the country possesses the fiscal, financial, and institutional mechanisms necessary to absorb shocks.

International experience shows that highly dollarized economies can benefit from a certain degree of stability, but they generally need other instruments to manage economic cycles. International reserves, the quality of the banking system, labor-market flexibility, diaspora transfers, export diversification, and fiscal credibility then become particularly important. Venezuela possesses a potentially significant advantage through its diaspora and energy resources, but it must transform these assets into durable institutional mechanisms.

The diaspora deserves particular attention in this regard. During the crisis, it has often functioned as an informal safety net for families remaining in the country. Money transfers have helped finance consumption, healthcare, education, and essential expenditures. But an ambitious national policy should seek to move beyond this emergency function. The diaspora can become a source of capital, skills, commercial networks, technological knowledge, and university partnerships. It can contribute to productive reconstruction if the institutional environment allows it to invest and return, temporarily or permanently.

A modern strategy could therefore create specific instruments to mobilize diaspora savings. Bonds targeted at Venezuelans abroad, investment mechanisms for infrastructure, venture-capital funds, university partnerships, and skills-return programs could gradually transform migration into a global economic network. Venezuela should no longer view Venezuelans living abroad solely as a population that has left the national territory. It could regard them as an international extension of national human capital.

This transformation would be particularly important for technological sectors. A country that has lost part of its engineers, doctors, researchers, entrepreneurs, and specialists can hardly rebuild all these skills rapidly through domestic efforts alone. The diaspora can accelerate the process. Professionals living abroad can participate remotely in projects, create businesses with local partners, train students, transfer management practices, and establish connections with international markets. Reconstruction therefore does not necessarily require the immediate return of the entire expatriate population. It first requires the creation of a system through which dispersed skills can become economically connected to the country again.

This approach connects directly to the generational question. Young Venezuelans must be able to see reconstruction as a project that belongs to them. An economic policy focused solely on stabilizing public finances will not be enough. Credible professional pathways will have to be created. Young people must be able to access quality education, enter productive companies, create their own enterprises, and participate in emerging sectors. Artificial intelligence, digital technologies, energy, precision agriculture, logistics, digital health, and international professional services can offer significant opportunities if the country invests in infrastructure and skills.

Education policy will therefore have to change its logic. It will no longer be enough simply to increase the number of students. Quality must improve, scientific skills must be developed, and mathematics, science, computer science, foreign languages, and problem-solving abilities must be strengthened. Universities must also become more closely connected to businesses and international research centers. An economy seeking to enter the twenty-first century cannot separate its education system from its productive strategy.

Artificial intelligence makes this requirement even more urgent. Countries that already possess computing infrastructure, databases, researchers, and technology companies can move extremely quickly. Those without these capabilities risk becoming mere users of technologies designed elsewhere. For Venezuela, the objective should not be to immediately compete with the United States or China in developing general-purpose AI models. It should be to develop applications adapted to its own needs: energy, agriculture, healthcare, public administration, education, disaster management, transportation, infrastructure monitoring, and financial services.

A realistic technological strategy could begin with targeted and economically useful applications. Artificial intelligence used to optimize electricity grids, forecast agricultural needs, improve maintenance of oil equipment, or facilitate public administration can generate substantial gains without immediately requiring an ecosystem comparable to Silicon Valley. Development often begins with the intelligent use of existing technologies before progressing toward their adaptation and eventually their production.

The same logic should guide industrial policy. Venezuela will not be able to rebuild all value chains simultaneously. It will have to choose sectors in which its resources, geography, and skills can create an advantage. Energy is obviously the first area, but it should not be the only one. Petrochemicals, agribusiness, logistics services, mineral processing, construction, digital services, tourism, healthcare, and certain light industries could gradually complement the economy.

Diversification does not mean abandoning historical sectors. It means using existing sectors to finance the emergence of new ones. Oil could finance infrastructure. Infrastructure could support industry. Industry could create skilled jobs. Skilled jobs could broaden the tax base. Tax revenues could finance education and healthcare. Education could, in turn, increase productivity. This virtuous cycle would allow the country gradually to move beyond a rent-based economic model.

The institutional challenge, however, will be immense. Investors may accept economic risks, but they find legal uncertainty much harder to tolerate. An economy seeking to attract long-term capital must guarantee contracts, property rights, access to justice, and transparent rules. Combating corruption therefore becomes an economic as well as a moral issue. Every dollar diverted is a dollar that does not finance a road, a school, a power plant, or a business.

Reconstruction must also restore the credibility of the state’s statistics. A modern economy cannot be governed properly without reliable data. Authorities need to know production levels, employment, prices, poverty, trade flows, investment, and the condition of infrastructure. Public statistics become an invisible but fundamental form of infrastructure. Without them, public policy is condemned to operate in uncertainty.

This requirement takes on particular importance when a country emerges from a prolonged crisis. Data must make it possible to measure progress, but also to identify mistakes. A government unable to recognize that a policy is not working risks unnecessarily prolonging problems. The ability to evaluate and correct therefore becomes a component of good governance.

Currency once again plays an important role here. In an economy where prices are relatively stable, statistics can be interpreted more easily. Companies can compare costs over several years. Households can measure their real progress. Investors can calculate returns. Monetary stability therefore also improves the quality of economic information.

But trust cannot be restored through numbers alone. It is built through everyday experience. When a citizen receives a salary and can still purchase a reasonably predictable quantity of goods several weeks later, trust in the system begins to return. When a company signs a multiyear contract without fearing arbitrary changes to the rules, it invests more. When a family can obtain credit and repay it in a stable currency, it can build a long-term plan. Economic trust is therefore a concrete reality experienced by millions of people.

This is why the question of dollarization must be placed within a broader conception of the social contract. A stable currency protects part of the fruits of labor. Fair taxation finances public goods. An independent judiciary protects contracts. Quality education prepares future generations. Industrial policy creates opportunities. Effective security protects people and investment. Currency cannot function sustainably outside this institutional ecosystem.

If that ecosystem is not rebuilt, dollarization risks becoming a partial and fragile solution. Prices may stabilize while infrastructure continues to deteriorate, inequalities may persist, and young people may continue to emigrate. A society can therefore experience monetary improvement without experiencing genuine economic renewal. Success will have to be measured through much broader indicators: productivity, formal employment, investment, quality of public services, diversified exports, human capital, and poverty reduction.

This perspective also explains why the monetary choice must be accompanied by deep banking reform. An economy that widely uses the dollar needs a financial system capable of mobilizing that currency toward investment. If banks cannot provide medium- and long-term credit, companies will remain dependent on their own resources or foreign capital. Monetary stabilization will therefore produce its full effects only if the financial system regains enough confidence to begin financing the real economy again.

Credit development must nevertheless be gradual. After a prolonged crisis, the priority should be to restore bank soundness, balance-sheet transparency, and the quality of supervision. Easy credit without adequate controls can generate new crises. Financial reconstruction should therefore follow the same principle as monetary reconstruction: stability first, expansion afterward.

Venezuela will also have to address a delicate social question. Monetary stabilization may benefit households that already possess dollar incomes or assets more than others. Poorer populations may remain vulnerable if their incomes do not rise at the same pace as prices. Dollarization must therefore not become a stability policy reserved for those who already possess savings capacity. It must be accompanied by a social policy capable of protecting the most vulnerable households during the transition.

This protection should not take the form of an uncontrolled proliferation of subsidies. It should target those who are genuinely vulnerable and be designed transparently. Social programs should enable families to navigate the transition while avoiding the creation of permanent dependency. The objective should remain productive inclusion: healthcare, education, training, employment, housing, and access to essential services.

Economic reconstruction must also take territories into account. Caracas cannot be the sole engine of recovery. Energy-producing, agricultural, mining, tourism, and service regions must be able to participate in the transformation. Economic decentralization can reduce internal migration, create new growth poles, and distribute infrastructure more effectively. Venezuela possesses considerable geographic diversity that could become an advantage if incorporated into a coherent national strategy.

This territorial dimension is particularly important for energy. The country must improve not only production but also distribution. A modern economy cannot function with unstable electricity networks. Businesses cannot plan production properly, hospitals cannot operate normally, and schools cannot fully use digital technologies when electricity remains intermittent. Energy reconstruction is therefore one of the first conditions for economic reconstruction.

The same logic applies to digital infrastructure. Access to fast and affordable Internet should be regarded as productive infrastructure. A young person who can work online, a company that can sell abroad, a doctor who can access international expertise, or a public administration that can provide digital services all contribute to a more productive economy. Connectivity is no longer a luxury. It is becoming a component of development.

This transformation could also allow Venezuela gradually to reduce some of the economic consequences of migration. If digital, industrial, and professional jobs are created, some young talents may choose to remain or return. The diaspora could participate remotely. Reconstruction could thus become a transnational process rather than an effort confined to national territory.

Currency, from this perspective, regains its true meaning. It is neither an economic flag nor a purely technical instrument. It is a collective convention that allows a society to coordinate its work over time. When it functions, it almost disappears from everyday consciousness. When it fails, it becomes omnipresent. Restoring a credible currency, whether national or foreign, therefore means restoring part of a society’s capacity to think about its future.

Venezuela will ultimately have to answer a question that goes far beyond currency: what kind of society does it want to build after the crisis? A society seeking merely to recover the oil revenues of the past will remain trapped in an old logic. A society that uses energy revenues to build a diversified, digital, productive, and socially inclusive economy can transform a resource inherited from the twentieth century into an instrument of twenty-first-century power.

The true success of any eventual dollarization would therefore not be that the dollar becomes the currency used in stores. It would be that ten or fifteen years later, Venezuelans could see that monetary stability had made it possible to rebuild investment, employment, education, infrastructure, businesses, and trust. If that transformation occurs, the monetary choice will have fulfilled a historical function. If it does not, the currency will have been merely a change of framework without a change in economic civilization.

The essential question then remains that of the contract between the state and society. For too long, currency has been presented as a matter for central banks, governments, and markets. In a society that has experienced a profound monetary crisis, it becomes a matter of economic dignity. It determines whether today’s work can genuinely contribute to tomorrow’s security. It determines whether a family can save for its children’s education. It determines whether an entrepreneur can take a risk without seeing years of work destroyed by instability. Ultimately, it determines whether a generation can believe that the future is worth building at home.

This is why any serious monetary reform will have to be accompanied by a broader national project. Venezuela must not merely seek a stable currency. It must seek an economy capable of earning that stability, institutions capable of protecting it, and a society capable of converting its benefits into social mobility. Currency can restore economic time. Only institutions, work, education, investment, and trust can transform that recovered time into a shared future.

VENEZUELA AND THE END OF AN IDEOLOGICAL WORLD: FROM 20TH-CENTURY RHETORIC TO THE CIVILIZATIONAL REALITIES OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Venezuelan question can no longer be confined to the political vocabulary that dominated much of the 20th century. For several decades, Latin American societies were interpreted through ideological categories that opposed capitalism to socialism, imperialism to sovereignty, the North to the South, the United States to revolutionary powers, and market economies to state-led systems. These categories played a real historical role and cannot be retrospectively erased. They accompanied anticolonial struggles, revolutions, the Cold War, national liberation movements and debates over social justice. But the world that produced them no longer exists in the same form. The 21st century has introduced technological, demographic, economic and civilizational realities that make an exclusively ideological reading inherited from the previous century increasingly insufficient. Venezuela finds itself precisely at the intersection of these two eras: a society still deeply marked by the political conflicts of the 20th century, yet confronted with a global environment whose rules are increasingly shaped by data, artificial intelligence, value chains, financial power, digital infrastructure, strategic minerals, the energy transition and the mastery of human capital.

This change of era does not mean that ideologies have disappeared. They continue to influence political identities, collective memories and institutional choices. What has become exhausted, rather, is their ability to provide, on their own, a sufficient explanation of the contemporary world. A left-right opposition, or a simple confrontation between socialism and capitalism, can no longer fully explain why governments with very different ideological orientations simultaneously seek Chinese investment, American technologies, European capital, Indian or South Korean partnerships and access to global markets. Nor can it fully explain why the United States itself combines free enterprise, industrial protection, public intervention, technological restrictions and tariff policy, while China combines strategic planning, state-owned enterprises, private capital and deep integration into global markets. The old categories have therefore not disappeared entirely, but they are now intersected by a new reality in which power is built through far more complex combinations.

Venezuela is a particularly revealing example of this transition. For years, the national debate was dominated by the question of whether to defend or oppose the Chavista political project, align with Washington or resist Washington, preserve the oil-based model or reform it, strengthen the state or expand the private sector. These debates remain important, but they are no longer sufficient to determine the country’s future. The central question is gradually becoming different: how can Venezuela build a society capable of functioning within a global economy in which productivity increasingly depends on technology, value chains are fragmented across several continents, energy is simultaneously an economic resource and a strategic instrument, data are acquiring a value comparable to that of certain raw materials, and younger generations have expectations profoundly different from those of their parents?

This generational transformation is essential. Young people entering the workforce in the coming years will have grown up in a digital environment, with a different relationship to information, mobility, work and authority. They will not experience the Cold War as a direct political reality. They will not necessarily perceive the United States, Russia, China or Europe through the historical categories used by previous generations. Their horizons will be shaped more by access to the Internet, educational opportunities, professional mobility, social networks, artificial intelligence, digital work platforms and the possibility of building a dignified life. For this generation, sovereignty will not simply mean a state’s ability to deliver speeches asserting independence. It will also mean the ability to provide electricity, reliable connectivity, competitive education, skilled employment, functioning public services and a currency that allows people to preserve the fruits of their labor.

This is where one of the great historical ruptures that Venezuela will have to acknowledge can be found. The sovereignty of the 20th century was largely territorial, military and ideological. The sovereignty of the 21st century is becoming technological, financial, energy-related, informational and cognitive as well. A country may retain its territory while depending almost entirely on foreign technologies. It may possess enormous natural resources while remaining unable to process them with sufficient added value. It may have a large population while gradually losing its most talented people. It may possess a national currency while its citizens increasingly prefer a foreign currency. Legal sovereignty remains indispensable, but it is no longer sufficient to guarantee genuine sovereignty.

This transformation makes the persistence of a political rhetoric that turns every international disagreement into an absolute confrontation between friends and enemies particularly problematic. In a fragmented world, states must be capable of cooperating with several powers on different issues without turning every form of cooperation into ideological alignment. India can cooperate with the United States on certain technologies while maintaining energy relations with Russia. South Korea can remain closely aligned with Washington while developing substantial commercial relations with China. Gulf states can work simultaneously with the United States, China, Europe and Asia. Even the major powers now seek to preserve multiple channels of influence. Why, then, should Venezuela continue to reason exclusively according to the logic of blocs?

This question becomes even more important because the structure of global power has changed profoundly. China has become a major industrial and commercial power. India is emerging as a demographic, technological and geopolitical power. Gulf states are investing massively in infrastructure, energy and technology. South Korea possesses essential industrial capabilities in several strategic sectors. Japan retains considerable technological and financial power. Europe remains a major economic, scientific and regulatory center. The United States remains an exceptional military, financial, technological and cultural power. Russia retains significant energy, military and nuclear capabilities despite the considerable costs of the war in Ukraine. The world is therefore no longer organized around a single, simple axis. It has become a system of overlapping centers of power in which each actor possesses different advantages.

This fragmentation creates both risks and opportunities for middle powers. The principal risk is becoming an arena of competition between great powers without possessing the means to define one’s own trajectory. The opportunity lies in the ability to exploit rivalries and complementarities in order to secure investment, technology, markets and expertise without falling into exclusive dependence. Venezuela, with its energy resources and geographic position, could theoretically benefit from this new configuration. But doing so would require a profound change in diplomatic method. The country would have to move from a predominantly political diplomacy toward a capacity-based diplomacy, in which each external relationship is assessed according to what it contributes to national transformation.

This evolution would be particularly important in Venezuela’s relationship with the United States. The new American approach, particularly under Donald Trump, tends to link trade, security, energy and national interests more directly. Tariffs, sanctions, energy negotiations and demands placed on allies can be used as instruments of a broader strategy. This policy may generate tensions with Washington’s traditional partners, but above all it reveals a changing conception of power. The United States increasingly views certain economic dependencies as strategic vulnerabilities. Competition with China therefore extends far beyond trade. It encompasses technology, value chains, infrastructure, critical minerals, industrial capacity and control over the sectors of the future.

Venezuela must understand this transformation without reducing it to the personality of Donald Trump. A presidency can alter methods, accelerate certain policies or slow certain trends, but technological and industrial competition between the United States and China has much deeper roots. It is connected to the structure of the international system and to the American determination to preserve its dominant position in the face of a China that has become capable of competing across numerous industrial and technological sectors. This rivalry will probably continue in different forms regardless of who occupies the White House. For Caracas, therefore, the question is not how to respond to one particular political personality, but how to build a strategy capable of functioning in a world permanently marked by this competition.

The same caution should guide the analysis of Russia. The war in Ukraine has profoundly altered Moscow’s international position, but it has not simply created a new balance of power between Russia and the West. It has also exposed the limits of certain assumptions about military power, economic sanctions, energy dependence and alliances. Russia has had to redirect a significant portion of its trade toward Asia, strengthen certain relations with China and India, and develop new commercial channels. This reorientation demonstrates that sanctions can alter economic networks without necessarily eliminating a state’s capabilities immediately. But it also reveals the considerable cost of prolonged confrontation and the difficulties faced by economies that lose access to certain technologies and markets.

For Venezuela, the Russian experience offers an important warning. Sovereignty does not consist solely of being able to withstand sanctions. It also consists of having an economy sufficiently diversified so that the loss of one market or supplier does not trigger systemic collapse. An economy that depends too heavily on a single partner can remain vulnerable even when that partner is politically close. Genuine resilience therefore rests on diversification of markets, technologies, financing and expertise.

The war in Ukraine has also shown that contemporary military power increasingly depends on civilian and digital technologies. Drones, satellites, artificial intelligence, secure communications, navigation systems, production capacity and logistics chains now play a considerable role. This evolution confirms that the boundary between civilian economics and national security is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. A country seeking to protect its sovereignty must therefore possess a sufficient technological and industrial base. Venezuela is obviously not seeking to become a global military power, but it must understand that 21st-century national security also depends on the resilience of its electrical grids, telecommunications, digital infrastructure and food supply chains.

This new reality also transforms the meaning of energy. In the 20th century, oil was essentially a strategic resource because it powered economies and armies. In the 21st century, energy remains fundamental, but its role has expanded. Data centers required for artificial intelligence consume enormous quantities of electricity. Electric vehicles depend on industrial supply chains associated with batteries and critical minerals. Electricity grids are becoming strategic infrastructure. The energy transition therefore does not mean the disappearance of resource geopolitics. It means its transformation.

Venezuela possesses an exceptional historical advantage in this regard, but that advantage will remain sustainable only if it is transformed. Oil can finance the transition toward a more diversified economy, but it cannot itself constitute the transition. The country will have to use energy revenues to rebuild infrastructure, modernize universities, develop vocational training, improve electricity networks and create industrial capabilities. The real question is therefore no longer how much oil Venezuela possesses. It is how much human, industrial and technological capital it can build through the use of that oil.

This approach also makes it possible to understand why the BRICS must be examined with caution. The grouping of major emerging economies has been an important expression of the desire of several countries of the Global South for stronger representation in international institutions. But the interests of its members are far from identical. China and India maintain a complex relationship. India and Russia have historical ties but operate in a different strategic environment. Brazil seeks to preserve diplomatic autonomy while developing relations with the United States, China and Europe. The new members likewise have their own priorities. BRICS can therefore contribute to the diversification of the international system, but it does not necessarily constitute a homogeneous bloc capable of replacing existing institutions.

This reality should lead Venezuela to avoid another ideological illusion. A multipolar world does not mean that countries of the Global South can automatically act as a unified bloc. Multipolarity primarily means that several centers of power coexist. National interests continue to determine choices. India defends its interests. Brazil defends its own. China defends its own. Gulf states defend theirs. Venezuela will have to do the same. Political solidarity can be useful, but it cannot replace a national strategy.

India is particularly instructive in this respect. New Delhi seeks to preserve a form of strategic autonomy that allows it to cooperate with several poles without accepting complete dependence on any one of them. This approach is made possible by the size of its market, its human capital, its technological capabilities and its geopolitical weight. Venezuela obviously does not possess the same scale, but it can draw one fundamental lesson from this strategy: autonomy does not mean isolation. It means maintaining multiple options.

South Korea offers another lesson. Its rise did not rest on an abundance of natural resources. It rested on education, industrialization, innovation, productive discipline and the ability to integrate into global value chains. The comparison should obviously not be applied mechanically. Venezuela has a completely different economic structure and history. But the contrast demonstrates that a nation can transform its international position through methodical investment in skills and technology.

This comparison is fundamental to understanding the true nature of Venezuela’s crisis. The problem is not that Venezuela lacks resources. It is that it lacks, above all, an architecture capable of converting resources into cumulative capabilities. Oil revenues can be enormous, but if they do not sufficiently finance education, research, infrastructure and industry, they fail to generate the necessary multiplier effect. Natural wealth then becomes static wealth rather than productive wealth.

The same reasoning applies to currency. The bolivar has lost part of its function as a store of value because institutional confidence has collapsed. But simply replacing the bolivar with the dollar would not automatically solve the productivity deficit. Currency is a thermometer of part of the crisis, but it is not the entire disease. Genuine reconstruction must therefore combine monetary stabilization, fiscal reform, industrial development, education, infrastructure and institutions.

This distinction is essential because it makes it possible to avoid two symmetrical errors. The first would be to regard dollarization as a betrayal of national sovereignty. The second would be to present it as a magical solution capable of resolving economic problems on its own. In both cases, currency would be transformed into an ideological symbol. Yet Venezuela precisely needs to move beyond this symbolic logic. It must assess instruments according to their concrete results for the population.

The need to move beyond symbolism may constitute the heart of the civilizational rupture imposed on the country by the 21st century. Contemporary societies can no longer be governed sustainably by political narratives that promise greatness without providing the infrastructure needed to build it. Sovereignty must be visible in everyday life. It must translate into a functioning school, a hospital capable of providing care, a company capable of producing, a university capable of conducting research, a reliable electricity network and a young person able to envision a future without viewing emigration as the only way out.

Patriotism itself will have to change its language. In the 20th century, it could be associated primarily with territorial defense, political independence and resistance to foreign influence. In the 21st century, it must also mean the ability to prepare future generations. A country that protects its territory but allows its scientists, engineers, doctors and entrepreneurs to leave gradually loses part of its sovereignty. A country that rejects foreign technologies in the name of independence without developing its own technological capabilities remains dependent. Contemporary sovereignty is therefore less a posture of refusal than a capacity for construction.

This generational transformation must also change the relationship between the state and citizens. Younger generations are less willing to accept abstract speeches when institutions fail to deliver results. Through the Internet, they can compare their circumstances with those of other countries in real time. They can observe salaries, universities, infrastructure and opportunities available elsewhere. This permanent comparison places new pressure on governments. Political legitimacy no longer depends solely on the national narrative. It also depends on performance.

Digitalization has therefore altered political psychology. Information circulates rapidly, citizens have access to global knowledge, and social models are constantly being compared. This does not mean that societies automatically become more rational or better informed. Disinformation and polarization can also increase. But the traditional monopoly over political information has been profoundly weakened. Governments must now build credibility in an environment where citizens can compare political narratives with realities observed elsewhere.

For Venezuela, this situation represents both a challenge and an opportunity. A government capable of producing tangible improvements can gain a new form of legitimacy. An economy that creates skilled jobs, improves infrastructure and stabilizes prices can rapidly transform perceptions. Conversely, promises unsupported by results will immediately be tested against international comparisons.

Economic policy must therefore be designed across several time horizons. Stabilization measures must address urgent needs, but they must be linked to a ten-, fifteen- or twenty-year strategy. Rebuilding energy infrastructure, reforming education, diversifying industry and creating a technological ecosystem cannot be accomplished within a few months. They require institutional continuity that extends beyond electoral cycles. This is one reason Venezuela will need institutions capable of maintaining certain strategic policies regardless of political alternation.

Such continuity does not mean the absence of democratic debate. It means that certain national infrastructures should be regarded as long-term projects. A power plant, a university, a railway network, a research program or an education reform should not be abandoned with every change of government. The most effective democracies know how to distinguish legitimate political disagreements from the institutional infrastructure necessary for state continuity.

This distinction could help overcome part of Venezuela’s polarization. Society does not need every citizen to share the same political vision. It needs citizens to be able to agree on certain minimum conditions for national functioning. Monetary stability, security, education, healthcare, electricity, the rule of law and public transparency can constitute areas of consensus even when political parties remain deeply divided over taxation, redistribution or ideological orientations.

Such an approach would allow politics to return to a more mature framework. Politics would not disappear. On the contrary, it would become more substantive because it would focus more heavily on genuine choices concerning the distribution of resources, the role of the state, public investment, social protection and economic priorities. A mature democracy is not a democracy without conflict. It is a democracy capable of transforming conflict into institutional decisions rather than permanent crises.

Venezuela must also understand that its regional environment is changing. Latin American governments are increasingly seeking to diversify their partners while maintaining economic relations with both the United States and China. New political generations are often less attached to the great ideological confrontations of the Cold War. They are more focused on economic results, security and international integration. Venezuela, if it wishes to regain regional influence, will therefore have to learn to speak this new language.

This transformation could open a new chapter in relations with Cuba. For decades, Cuba occupied a major symbolic position in Latin American revolutionary politics. But economic and generational realities have changed. Cuba’s own leaders face an economy under pressure, an aging population, significant emigration and rapid technological transformation. The relationship between Caracas and Havana will therefore probably have to evolve from predominantly ideological solidarity toward more pragmatic cooperation centered on healthcare, education, culture, tourism, exchanges and specific areas of expertise.

This evolution would not mean the disappearance of their shared history. It would mean that history would no longer be the only language of the relationship. The 21st century imposes different requirements. People want to know what partnerships concretely contribute to their lives. An alliance that fails to produce economic or human capabilities will gradually lose its relevance.

The same logic applies to relations with Russia. Venezuela may maintain diplomatic, energy or military relations with Moscow, but it will have to place them within a much broader strategy. In a world where Russia must devote a considerable share of its resources to the war in Ukraine and where its access to certain Western technologies remains heavily constrained, Caracas cannot regard Moscow as an unlimited source of capital, technology or economic guarantees. The relationship must be realistic, based on the actual capabilities of each partner. Such realism does not mean abandoning historical relationships. It means adapting them. Twenty-first-century foreign policy should no longer be based on permanent loyalty to alliances designed in a different environment. It must be capable of regularly assessing interests, risks and opportunities. Today’s partners may remain tomorrow’s partners, but forms of cooperation must evolve with the world.

Venezuela could thus build an international doctrine based on strategic diversification. The United States could be a major partner for certain investments and markets. China could contribute to infrastructure and industrial value chains. India could become an energy, pharmaceutical and technological partner. South Korea could participate in industrialization and advanced technologies. Europe could contribute to standards, research and investment. Brazil could play a major regional role. Colombia could become a strategic border partner. Caribbean countries could participate in a regional architecture for energy, food and climate security. None of these partnerships should be exclusive.

Such a doctrine would represent a break with the international politics of the 20th century. It would no longer require Venezuela to choose a camp before defining its interests. It would require the country to define its interests before choosing the form of each partnership. This reversal of method could become one of the principal innovations of its future diplomacy.

The real issue is ultimately a nation’s capacity to learn. Societies that successfully navigate major historical transitions are not those that possess all the answers at the outset. They are those capable of learning rapidly, correcting mistakes, mobilizing talent and adapting institutions. Venezuela possesses considerable historical experience, but it must transform that experience into a collective capacity to learn.

The current crisis can therefore be interpreted in two ways. It can be viewed as the end of a model, with all the losses, frustrations and nostalgia that this entails. But it can also be understood as the beginning of a period of reconstruction in which the country stops trying to restore the past exactly as it was and begins building something different. The second path is obviously more difficult because it requires abandoning old certainties. But it is probably the only path that genuinely corresponds to the transformations of the world.

Venezuela cannot return to the 20th century because the 20th century no longer exists. It cannot reproduce the same alliances, the same economic models, the same industrial structures or the same forms of sovereignty in an environment where artificial intelligence, data, digital platforms, global value chains and technological competition increasingly determine the distribution of power. It must therefore build a new national modernity.

This modernity should not be a servile imitation of a foreign model. It must combine Venezuela’s resources and history with the realities of the 21st century. It must recognize the importance of oil without becoming its prisoner, use the dollar or any other monetary architecture pragmatically, welcome foreign investment without surrendering national decision-making capacity, develop technologies without abandoning culture and identity, strengthen international relations without losing strategic autonomy, and build a digital economy without abandoning the millions of citizens who still work in traditional sectors.

The true transcendence of the 20th century will therefore not consist in erasing its struggles, but in learning from them. Venezuela does not need to forget its history. It needs to stop being imprisoned by it. The great historical question then becomes this: will Venezuela be able to transform the end of one era into the beginning of another? The answer will depend neither on the bolivar alone, nor on the dollar alone, nor on Washington, nor on Beijing, nor on oil, nor on a new international alliance. It will depend on a society’s ability to rebuild trust, educate future generations, retain and mobilize its talent, modernize its institutions and convert its resources into capabilities.

It is under this condition that monetary rupture, should it occur, could acquire a meaning far deeper than a mere change of unit of account. It could become the symbol of a historical transition: the passage from an economy dominated by rent and ideological confrontation toward an economy seeking its place in a digital, multipolar, technologically competitive and deeply interdependent world. Venezuela would then no longer be facing merely a monetary question. It would be facing a civilizational question: how can it enter the 21st century without abandoning what constitutes its identity, while refusing to allow that identity to be used as a justification for reproducing the mistakes of the previous century? It is this question that must now guide reconstruction.

VENEZUELA AND THE GREAT SHIFT OF THE GLOBAL SOUTH: BETWEEN NEW SOVEREIGNTY, TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCIES AND THE BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE

The Venezuelan question has now reached a dimension that definitively transcends the borders of South America. The country represents a particularly revealing case of a transformation affecting a large part of the Global South: the gradual disappearance of a world in which natural resources, geographic position and membership in an ideological alliance could be sufficient to guarantee a certain degree of influence, and the emergence of an international system in which power increasingly depends on the ability to combine human capital, technology, energy, infrastructure, data, institutional stability, market access and strategic autonomy. Venezuela possesses several of these elements in abundance, but their combination remains incomplete. Its oil gives it exceptional energy significance, its geographic position gives it strategic value in the Caribbean and the Americas, its population possesses human capital that has extended well beyond national borders through the diaspora, and its agricultural, mining, energy and industrial potential remains considerable. Yet these advantages do not automatically translate into power. Venezuela’s central problem, like that of many economies of the Global South, is precisely one of conversion: converting resources into capabilities, capabilities into productivity, productivity into wealth, and wealth into lasting sovereignty.

This question becomes particularly important at a time when the traditional boundaries between economic policy and security policy are disappearing. Major powers no longer regard infrastructure, critical minerals, ports, electricity grids, payment systems, data or advanced technologies as mere instruments of development. They have become strategic assets. Semiconductors are associated with military and industrial power; batteries are linked to the energy transition and mobility; undersea cables have become essential communications infrastructure; satellites contribute to navigation, communications and observation; data centers are becoming digital sovereignty infrastructure; energy resources influence diplomatic relations; and logistics chains can determine a country’s ability to withstand a crisis. This new reality means that a country that neglects its technological infrastructure can lose part of its sovereignty without a border being crossed and without a military conflict ever being initiated.

For the Global South, this evolution presents an additional difficulty because the technological gap is no longer measured only in the number of factories or the volume of capital. It is also measured in the speed of learning. An economy with strong universities, numerous researchers, high-quality data, computing capacity, capital and innovative companies can progress rapidly because it benefits from a cumulative effect. Each generation of technologies improves the infrastructure of the next. Companies learn, workers specialize, universities adapt their curricula, investors become more confident and foreign talent is attracted. Conversely, an economy lacking these elements can enter the opposite spiral: low productivity, weak investment, talent flight, research deficits, technological dependence and growing difficulty in entering high-value sectors. The digital divide therefore risks becoming a development divide far deeper than the older inequalities in access to technology.

Venezuela stands precisely at this crossroads. It could use its available energy resources to finance a technological, educational and industrial acceleration, or it could continue to regard oil as the principal answer to its economic problems. In the first scenario, oil becomes an instrument of transition toward a more diversified economy. In the second, it remains a rent that temporarily postpones difficulties without sufficiently altering the productive structure. This distinction will be decisive. Economies that have succeeded in using natural resources to build industrial and technological capabilities are those that regarded rent as a means rather than an end. The true national patrimony is not merely the resources beneath the soil, but the knowledge that society is capable of accumulating through their exploitation.

This conception requires a profound reassessment of sovereignty. For a long time, sovereignty was associated with a state’s right to control its territory and freely determine its policies. That definition remains indispensable, but it is insufficient in a world where an increasing share of power is embedded in infrastructure controlled by foreign companies or international networks. A state may legally own its natural resources while depending on foreign technologies to exploit them. It may possess a central bank while depending on a foreign currency for transactions. It may have national universities while sending its best students abroad because local laboratories lack the necessary equipment. It may have national companies while importing most strategic components. Genuine sovereignty is therefore becoming a combination of ownership, competence and decision-making capacity.

This is why the debate over Venezuelan dollarization should never be separated from the debate over sovereignty. A foreign currency can provide valuable stability during a crisis, but it can also reveal the depth of institutional dependence. The responsible response is not to deny that dependence in the name of an abstract principle, but to determine how it can be used, temporarily or permanently, without abandoning the construction of national capabilities. Twenty-first-century sovereignty does not consist in refusing all dependence. No country, even among the most powerful, is completely autonomous. It consists in avoiding irreversible dependencies and maintaining enough options to preserve bargaining power.

This notion of autonomy through diversification could become one of the fundamental doctrines of a renewed Venezuela. The country should avoid replacing one form of dependence with another. The objective would not be to choose between Washington and Beijing, between the dollar and another currency, between American and Chinese technologies, or between Western and Asian markets. It would be to construct a sufficiently diversified portfolio of national relationships so that each partnership strengthens the country’s overall capacity without becoming indispensable to its functioning. Such an approach would require a far more sophisticated diplomacy than the old policies of ideological alignment.

It would also imply a transformation in the state’s role in international negotiations. Economic agreements should no longer be evaluated solely according to the amount of investment announced or the volume of credit extended. They should be assessed according to their ability to create skilled jobs, develop local suppliers, transfer knowledge, improve infrastructure, strengthen exports and create durable strategic assets. A power plant, port, refinery, data center or railway line should never be regarded as an end in itself. The essential question should always be its multiplier effect on the national economy.

This logic is particularly important in Venezuela’s relationship with China. Chinese power rests to a large extent on its ability to build infrastructure at scale and integrate industrial, financial and technological sectors. For Venezuela, therefore, the issue should not be whether to reject Chinese investment, but whether to negotiate partnerships that increase national capabilities. Chinese companies can build infrastructure rapidly, but genuine transformation begins when local workers, engineers, universities and national companies participate sufficiently in the process to reproduce, adapt and improve the technologies received. Without this dimension, foreign investment risks remaining an imported capability rather than becoming a national capability.

The same requirement should apply to Western partners. American or European investment can bring capital, technologies, standards and commercial networks, but it should not be designed solely as a mechanism for resource extraction. A mature national strategy must seek to create value chains. Venezuela should therefore negotiate not only the exploitation of oil, but also petrochemicals, energy services, industrial maintenance, training, equipment and research. Each sector should be analyzed as an ecosystem rather than as a simple source of revenue.

This conception connects directly with the question of nearshoring and the reorganization of global supply chains. If international companies seek to relocate certain activities closer to North American markets or diversify suppliers because of tensions with China, Latin American countries may benefit from new opportunities. But the opportunity will not materialize automatically. It will depend on the quality of infrastructure, the availability of electricity, worker training, legal stability and governments’ ability to offer coherent industrial policies. Venezuela will therefore have to become predictable before it can become attractive.

Institutional predictability is probably one of the most underestimated resources of development. Investors can accept relatively high costs when they have long-term visibility. They can accept demanding taxation when it is stable. They can accept complex procedures when they are transparent. What destroys investment is often not the level of a constraint but permanent uncertainty about how it may change. For a country seeking to rebuild credibility, the stability of rules could therefore matter as much as tax incentives.

Rebuilding the rule of law must consequently accompany every economic reform. Contracts must be enforceable, courts must be sufficiently independent to resolve disputes, administrations must operate according to predictable procedures, and corruption must be confronted not merely through declarations but through institutional mechanisms capable of reducing opportunities for diversion of public resources. An economy cannot attract productive capital over the long term if investors believe their assets may be undermined by unpredictable decisions.

Institutional reconstruction must also extend to the statistical system and public finances. A modern state must know its own resources, expenditures, debts, infrastructure and population. Budget transparency then becomes an instrument of trust. Citizens must be able to understand how oil revenues are being used. Investors must be able to assess the state’s financial position. International partners must be able to work with credible data. Transparency is therefore not merely a democratic value. It becomes an economic competitiveness factor.

Fiscal policy will be equally decisive. An economy seeking to move beyond oil dependence must gradually broaden its tax base. But the objective should not be to multiply taxes to the point of discouraging investment and pushing economic activity into informality. It should be to build a tax system that is simple, predictable, reasonably equitable and capable of financing public goods. The transition will have to be gradual because the productive sector cannot simultaneously bear the cost of reconstruction, international competition and an incoherent tax burden.

This fiscal reconstruction must also incorporate a social dimension. Macroeconomic stability cannot be sustainable if it is perceived as a mechanism that protects only asset holders while leaving poorer households to bear the cost of adjustment. Reform must therefore be accompanied by targeted social protection, access to healthcare, support for education and training programs. The objective is not to artificially preserve every old subsidy structure, but to protect people’s ability to participate in the new economy.

This question is central to the political legitimacy of a transition. A successful economic reform is not merely one that improves national accounts. It must also be experienced as an improvement by the population. If statistics improve but families see no change in their prospects, political confidence will remain fragile. Development must therefore be measured through real life: income stability, school quality, electricity availability, access to healthcare, professional mobility, housing, security and the ability to save.

This is where the generational question again becomes crucial. Young Venezuelans cannot be persuaded by a reconstruction based solely on nostalgia for a former oil prosperity. They will need an economy capable of offering them new occupations. The labor market of 2035 will not be the labor market of 1995. Automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, digital platforms, new energy systems and cross-border services will profoundly alter the skills demanded. A national strategy that prepares young people only for traditional jobs therefore risks reproducing the dependencies of the past.

The education system will have to learn to train not merely workers capable of filling a position, but citizens capable of learning repeatedly throughout their professional lives. This capacity for continuous learning will probably become one of the principal forms of economic security. In an economy where certain tasks disappear and others emerge rapidly, the most valuable skill will not simply be mastery of a particular technology, but the ability to understand change and adapt to it.

This requirement is particularly important for countries of the Global South because artificial intelligence can have ambivalent effects. It can allow a developing country to leapfrog certain stages by automating services that previously required extensive administrative infrastructure. But it can also reduce international demand for certain outsourced intellectual services that had constituted an important source of revenue for emerging economies. Countries that relied on relatively low-cost labor for call centers, data entry or certain administrative functions will now have to move up the value chain.

Venezuela can benefit from this evolution if it develops skills in areas where technology increases the value of human labor rather than simply replacing it. Engineering, cybersecurity, specialized healthcare, scientific research, digital creation, infrastructure management, data analysis, industrial maintenance and international professional services could become promising sectors. But their development will require deep educational reform and improved connectivity.

This transformation will not be purely economic. It will also alter the country’s social structure. A more knowledge-based economy can create new professional classes, strengthen university and technology cities, and reshape relations between regions. It can also intensify inequality if access to advanced education remains limited to more privileged families. The state will therefore have to regard access to technology and quality education as a matter of equal opportunity.

The diaspora can become an essential bridge in this process. Venezuelans living in advanced economies possess direct experience of new technological and institutional environments. They can contribute to training, mentoring, entrepreneurship and access to markets. The physical return of part of this population would obviously be valuable, but reconstruction should not depend on a massive and immediate return. Digital technologies make it possible to mobilize a diaspora remotely, provided credible institutions create mechanisms for participation.

An ambitious diaspora policy could thus become a central element of new Venezuelan sovereignty. The country should no longer regard emigration solely as a loss. It also represents a network of skills, capital and international relationships. This transformation nevertheless requires a change in perspective. Citizens living abroad must be regarded as partners in national development rather than as populations permanently separated from their country.

The same principle could be applied to relations with other Latin American countries. The Global South should not seek to build complete technological autonomy in every state. Such an ambition would be too costly and, in some cases, unrealistic. It would be more effective to build complementary regional capabilities. Brazil can contribute in certain industrial and scientific fields, Argentina in certain agricultural and nuclear technologies, Chile in critical minerals and certain energy policies, Colombia in logistics and services, and Mexico in North American industrial supply chains. Venezuela can contribute energy, geography, certain mineral resources and agricultural potential. Regional cooperation could therefore become a strategy of collective sovereignty.

This collective sovereignty should not be built against the United States, China or Europe. It should allow Latin America to negotiate with them from a more balanced position. A technologically more capable and integrated regional market would possess greater bargaining power than a collection of dependent economies dealing separately with major powers. Regional power could therefore become an instrument of autonomy without becoming a project of confrontation.

The same logic can be applied to the Caribbean. The region’s small states cannot individually finance all the infrastructure required for the digital and climate transitions. But they can pool certain functions: weather data, telecommunications infrastructure, training, healthcare, maritime security, energy and disaster management. Venezuela, because of its size and resources, could contribute to such a regional architecture if it regains sufficient stability.

This Caribbean dimension could also strengthen Venezuela’s international position. Regional power depends not only on economic size. It also depends on the ability to provide public goods. A country capable of supplying energy, supporting regional infrastructure, contributing to food security or offering scientific capabilities can exercise significant influence without imposing its will on others.

This conception of power is very different from that which dominated part of the 20th century. It does not rest primarily on weapons or ideological rhetoric. It rests on strategic usefulness. Countries that provide infrastructure, technology, energy, knowledge or markets become partners whose interests others must take into account. This transformation corresponds to the emergence of a more diffuse form of power, in which influence is built through networks.

Venezuela could precisely seek to become a node within these networks. Its energy can supply the region. Its ports can participate in Caribbean trade. Its resources can support industrial value chains. Its universities can rebuild scientific partnerships. Its diaspora can create bridges with global markets. Its territory can host new logistical and industrial activities. But each of these possibilities requires a prior condition: the restoration of trust.

That trust will be particularly difficult to rebuild because prolonged crises create collective memory. Citizens remember lost savings, interrupted services, the departure of loved ones and political promises that were never fulfilled. A new economic strategy cannot simply ask the population to believe. It must produce successive evidence. Trust will return gradually, when institutions demonstrate that they work.

This is why reconstruction must be designed as a cumulative process. The first years should prioritize monetary stabilization, restoration of essential infrastructure, energy security and institutional reform. Subsequent years can accelerate industrialization, export diversification, innovation and advanced training. Over the longer term, the country can aim for an economy increasingly based on knowledge and high-value services. This chronology matters because a society attempting to transform everything simultaneously risks dispersing its resources.

The same discipline must apply to foreign policy. Venezuela will not rebuild its international position by multiplying agreements without hierarchy. It will have to identify the sectors in which each partner can provide particular value and negotiate according to a national strategy. Economic diplomacy must become a specialized profession, supported by data, sectoral analysis and precise knowledge of global value chains.

From this perspective, Venezuela could gradually move from reactive diplomacy to anticipatory diplomacy. Instead of waiting for sanctions, crises or changes in oil prices, it should identify international trends several years in advance. The rise of electric vehicles, increasing demand for critical minerals, the growth of data centers, the energy needs of artificial intelligence, the transformation of maritime trade, the restructuring of industrial supply chains and new climate requirements must become parameters of national planning.

This capacity for anticipation is probably one of the fundamental differences between states that succeed in turning crises into opportunities and those that merely endure them. The former use periods of change to invest before others. The latter wait until the new rules are already established and then attempt to adapt. Venezuela still possesses sufficient resources to choose the first trajectory, but the historical window will not remain open indefinitely.

The real battle of the 21st century will therefore be less about possession of resources than about their transformation. Crude oil has less strategic value than the industrial, scientific and financial capabilities built through its use. Critical minerals become more valuable when integrated into processing chains. Data become more valuable when they generate services and knowledge. A population becomes an advantage when it is educated. Territory becomes power when it is connected. A diaspora becomes an asset when it remains linked to the country. A currency becomes credible when it rests on a productive economy.

This logic places Venezuela’s crisis within the broader transformation of the Global South. Many countries today possess significant resources but remain behind in technology, research and industrialization. They risk becoming indispensable suppliers of raw materials while remaining dependent on the technologies required to transform them. This situation could create a new form of dependence that is no longer merely colonial or financial, but technological.

The challenge of the century will therefore be to determine whether the Global South can convert its demographic scale, natural resources, markets and energy into its own technological capabilities. Some countries already appear to be moving in this direction. India is seeking to build autonomous technological power. China possesses enormous industrial capacity. South Korea continues to strengthen strategic sectors. Several Gulf states are investing massively in technology and diversification. Brazil is seeking to strengthen some of its scientific and industrial capabilities. Yet much of the Global South remains confronted with considerable gaps in education, digital infrastructure and research.

This situation could produce a new and more complex global hierarchy than the old North-South divide. Some countries historically classified as developing economies will become technological or industrial powers, while others will remain dependent despite their resources. The geography of power will therefore be increasingly determined not by latitude but by the density of capabilities.

Venezuela still has the possibility of placing itself among the countries that transform advantages into capabilities. But this possibility requires an intellectual break with dependence on simple solutions. There is no currency capable of replacing a productive policy, no foreign partner capable of replacing a national strategy, no oil wealth capable of replacing education, and no sovereignty-centered rhetoric capable of replacing technology.

New Venezuelan sovereignty will therefore have to be far more demanding than that of the past. It will have to accept interdependence while reducing vulnerabilities, welcome investment while requiring national returns, use foreign technologies while progressively developing local skills, export resources while increasing the added value produced domestically, and work with several powers without becoming the instrument of any of them.

This conception could also reconcile two aspirations long presented as contradictory: international openness and national sovereignty. A country poor in capabilities does not become more sovereign by closing itself off from the world. On the contrary, it risks losing even faster access to knowledge, capital and technology. The real strategy is to use openness to strengthen internal capabilities. Openness then becomes an instrument of sovereignty rather than its negation.

Venezuela could make this idea the guiding principle of its reconstruction. Its future should not be defined by the question of which major power will accept it within its orbit. It should be defined by the question of which national capabilities will enable it to engage with all major powers from a more balanced position. This difference in perspective is fundamental. In the first case, Venezuela waits for a place. In the second, it builds its strategic value.

The true historical turning point could emerge when the country stops asking the world to recognize its power and begins producing the conditions that make that power difficult to ignore. This transformation will not depend on a single political declaration. It will result from thousands of decisions made in schools, universities, companies, laboratories, banks, ports, farms, energy infrastructure and public administrations.

This is ultimately where Venezuela’s future in the 21st century will be decided. The monetary question will have opened the debate, the political crisis will have exposed vulnerabilities, American geopolitics will have demonstrated the transformation of power relations, the rise of China and India will have revealed the new plurality of the international system, artificial intelligence will have accelerated technological competition, and the crisis of old ideological models will have imposed a new reflection on sovereignty. But none of these transformations will determine the country’s destiny on its own. That destiny will depend on the ability of Venezuelans to convert rupture into reconstruction and reconstruction into productive power.

Venezuela could then become more than a case study in monetary crisis. It could become a laboratory for rebuilding a Global South state in a world where sovereignty is measured not merely by possession of territory or a national currency, but by a society’s ability to create value, master essential technologies, protect its citizens, retain its talent, diversify its alliances and prepare future generations. This transformation would be the genuine response to the challenges of the 21st century. It would not consist in returning to a past greatness, but in building a new form of power suited to an era in which energy, knowledge, data, technology, trust and the capacity to learn are becoming the principal currencies of international competition.

VENEZUELA AFTER THE BREAK: WHAT TRAJECTORY TOWARD 2035?

The question now is no longer simply whether Venezuela can emerge from its monetary, institutional, and productive crisis, but what kind of society could emerge from a potential break with the economic architecture that has dominated the country for decades. This distinction is fundamental, because financial stabilization does not necessarily amount to historical transformation. A country can reduce inflation without rebuilding its productive base, restore a degree of monetary circulation without durably rebuilding confidence, attract capital without sufficiently developing its human capital, and increase oil production without creating an economy that is less dependent on rent. The real challenge on the road to 2035 therefore lies elsewhere: whether Venezuela will be able to transform a period of rupture into a national reconstruction strategy, and above all whether that reconstruction can be embedded in the new economic and technological geography of the twenty first century.

The year 2035 should not be regarded as a magical date, but as a sufficiently distant horizon to make it possible to observe the cumulative effects of reform and sufficiently close to impose immediate decisions. A decade can be enough to profoundly transform an economy when institutions function, investment is sustained, and public policies benefit from a degree of stability. It can also be lost when governments constantly change direction, investment remains insufficient, or successive crises absorb most of the resources available. For Venezuela, 2035 will therefore represent less a deadline than a historic test: the ability to move from crisis management to the construction of a new model.

This transition will have to begin with an intellectual clarification. The country will not be able to rebuild its future by simply attempting to restore the Venezuela that existed before the great economic rupture. Part of that memory can legitimately be associated with a period of prosperity, social mobility, and public investment capacity, but the international conditions that made that configuration possible have changed profoundly. The global energy market is different, technologies are different, production chains are different, power relations are different, and the expectations of younger generations are different. Even if Venezuela were to recover high oil revenues tomorrow, it would not recover exactly the world in which those revenues once generated such influence. Reconstruction must therefore be forward looking rather than nostalgic.

This requirement is probably one of the most difficult dimensions of national transformation. Societies in crisis naturally seek to recover what they have lost. They compare the present with an earlier period regarded as more stable, more prosperous, or more predictable. That memory can play a positive role when it reminds the country of what it is capable of achieving, but it becomes dangerous when it turns the past into a mandatory model. Venezuela must not attempt to rebuild a twentieth century oil economy with twenty first century tools. It must use the resources of its past to construct an economy adapted to the future.

The first possible trajectory would be that of sovereign and open reconstruction. Under this scenario, Venezuela would gradually stabilize its monetary and financial environment, restore essential infrastructure, rebuild the rule of law, attract productive investment, and use its energy resources as a lever for diversification. Oil would remain important, perhaps even extremely important, but it would no longer constitute the sole architecture of the economy. Energy revenues would progressively be transformed into investments in electricity, transport, ports, education, healthcare, telecommunications, industry, research, and digital technologies. The logic would be that of an economy using its natural advantage to build artificial advantages, namely skills and capabilities that other countries cannot simply reproduce by possessing a similar natural resource.

Under this trajectory, the monetary question would be integrated into a broader strategy of restoring confidence. If partial or broader dollarization were to contribute to stabilizing transactions and protecting households against the loss of value of the national currency, it could be considered either a transitional instrument or a lasting component of the monetary architecture. But it would not be presented as the ultimate objective of reform. The real objective would be to create the economic conditions allowing the country to gradually establish a credible monetary system, whatever institutional form it ultimately takes. Money would then recover its fundamental function: facilitating economic activity rather than becoming the principal subject of political activity.

In this favorable scenario, rebuilding the banking system would be equally important. An economy cannot diversify if its financial system is unable to finance businesses, infrastructure, housing, exports, and innovation. Restoring confidence in banks, modernizing payment systems, and developing digital financial services could play a major role. But financial modernization should not be confused with the mere proliferation of digital applications. A modern financial system is first and foremost one capable of mobilizing savings toward productive investment, managing risk, and facilitating the integration of domestic companies into international markets.

The second trajectory would be that of stabilization without transformation. It is probably easier to imagine because it corresponds to a situation in which certain macroeconomic variables improve without sufficiently altering the deeper structure of the economy. The currency could become more stable, inflation could decline, oil production could increase, and some foreign investment could return, while the economy remained heavily dependent on hydrocarbons. Essential infrastructure could be partially restored without the entire territory benefiting from comparable modernization. Non oil sectors could expand, but too slowly to absorb the employment needs of a young working age population and to sufficiently reduce dependence on energy revenues.

This scenario would be politically more comfortable in the short term because it would allow governments to present visible improvements without undertaking all the institutional transformations required. But it would remain extremely vulnerable. Another decline in energy prices, a geopolitical crisis, a new wave of sanctions, or a technological shock could rapidly expose the structural weaknesses of the model. The country would have regained a measure of stability without having genuinely built resilience.

The third trajectory would be that of a new dependency. Under this scenario, the monetary crisis would lead to rapid but insufficiently managed economic opening. Venezuela would attract capital and increase energy production, but without sufficiently developing local suppliers, research, training, and processing industries. Infrastructure would be modernized primarily by foreign actors, and technologies would be imported without significant transfer of expertise. Revenues would increase, but national productive capacity would remain limited. The country would move from an old dependency to a new one.

This possibility is particularly important in the context of competition among major powers. A Venezuela urgently seeking capital could be tempted to accept almost every offer available. But a reconstruction strategy cannot be assessed solely according to the volume of investment announced. An investment worth several billion dollars can generate little national transformation if most equipment, expertise, and services are imported from abroad, a large share of profits is repatriated, and little capacity remains behind. Conversely, a smaller investment can have a much greater impact when it creates a local supplier chain, trains engineers, strengthens a university, increases exports, and generates knowledge that can be reused.

The difference between these two trajectories therefore lies in the notion of capacity. Venezuela should not merely seek to receive capital. It should seek to accumulate capabilities. This distinction should become a central principle of economic policy. Every major project should be evaluated according to several criteria: how many skilled jobs does it create, how much value remains in the country, what skills are transferred, which domestic companies can participate, what new infrastructure is created, and what export opportunities emerge once the project is completed? Such an approach would make it possible to move from an investment attraction policy toward a policy of transformation through investment.

Industrial reconstruction should follow the same logic. It would be unrealistic to attempt to reproduce every industry found in major powers. Venezuela must select the sectors in which its resources, geography, population, and commercial relationships give it advantages. Energy and petrochemicals naturally constitute a first area. Agribusiness could be a second, provided rural infrastructure, irrigation, storage, logistics, and financing are modernized. Mineral processing could represent a third pillar, but it would require a rigorous environmental and industrial strategy. Digital services and selected sectors of the knowledge economy could constitute a fourth, particularly important for younger generations.

Diversification must not, however, become an endless list of priority sectors. A common mistake in industrial policy is to declare almost every economic activity a priority, which ultimately means establishing no priorities at all. Venezuela will have to concentrate its resources on a limited number of value chains capable of producing multiplier effects. Success will depend less on the number of sectors announced than on the coherence between energy, training, infrastructure, financing, research, and market access.

The energy sector will remain at the center of this architecture. Even in an economy engaged in the global energy transition, oil and gas will continue to play a major role for many years. Venezuela therefore has a strategic window of opportunity. It can use this period to rebuild its energy industry while gradually preparing for diversification. The danger would be to regard future global demand as a permanent guarantee. Technological and climate transformations may alter consumption patterns, investment flows, and international standards more rapidly than expected. A prudent policy must therefore regard current oil revenues as a resource to be converted rather than as an eternal rent.

This conversion could take several forms. Part of the revenues could finance national energy infrastructure, particularly the modernization of electricity networks. Another portion could support technical and scientific education. Another could contribute to a national investment fund dedicated to infrastructure and export oriented sectors. A further portion could strengthen reserves and financial stability. The essential principle would be to prevent periods of high prices from automatically generating an expansion of current spending without a corresponding increase in the country’s productive assets.

Electricity infrastructure deserves particular attention because it lies at the intersection of almost every future transformation. Without reliable electricity, there can be no modern industry, no competitive data centers, no advanced digital services, no effective healthcare system, and no genuine technological transition. Electricity is therefore becoming one of the primary infrastructures of sovereignty in the twenty first century. Venezuela may possess enormous energy potential and yet remain technologically vulnerable if its national grid remains fragile.

The reconstruction of the electricity system could also open a new strategy of energy diversification. The hydroelectric, solar, and wind potential of certain regions could be developed alongside hydrocarbons. But the transition should not be conceived as a confrontation between oil and renewable energy. In a country such as Venezuela, the question should instead be how to make the best use of each energy source. Hydrocarbons can provide revenues and certain industrial capabilities, while renewables can help diversify the electricity system and reduce specific territorial vulnerabilities.

Agriculture represents another area in which Venezuela could seek to reduce a historical dependency. A modern food policy cannot, however, be reduced to expanding cultivated land. It must integrate seeds, irrigation, fertilizers, mechanization, storage, processing, transportation, agricultural insurance, weather data, and access to credit. Agriculture in the twenty first century is itself becoming a technological industry. Satellite data, sensors, weather models, and artificial intelligence can improve yields and reduce certain risks. Venezuela could therefore use technology to transform a traditional sector into a driver of modernization.

This transformation would be particularly important for food security. An economy excessively dependent on food imports remains vulnerable to exchange rate fluctuations, logistical crises, and geopolitical disruptions. Food sovereignty does not necessarily mean producing everything domestically. It means possessing sufficient capacity to guarantee access to food even when international markets are disrupted. This distinction is essential to avoid ineffective protectionism.

Foreign trade must therefore remain open. Venezuela will not be able to rebuild its economy by isolating itself from international markets. On the contrary, it will need to diversify its markets. Access to the American, Chinese, European, Latin American, and Caribbean markets could allow domestic companies to develop multiple sources of revenue. But this openness will have to be accompanied by a competitiveness policy. A company permanently protected from international competition does not necessarily become more productive. Protection may temporarily be necessary to allow certain emerging sectors to develop, but it should be accompanied by clear productivity and export objectives.

This question leads directly to the issue of the size of the domestic market. Venezuela has a significant internal market, but it is insufficient to allow every modern industry to achieve the economies of scale required on its own. Regional integration could therefore play a decisive role. Proximity to Colombia, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North American markets offers considerable opportunities. Rebuilding border and logistics infrastructure could allow Venezuela to become a platform connecting several economic spaces.

This geographic position could be reinforced by the new trade routes emerging in a world where companies are seeking to diversify their supply chains. Nearshoring and the partial regionalization of production could create opportunities for Latin American countries. But favorable geography is not enough. Companies will choose territories where infrastructure works, rules are stable, logistics costs are predictable, and the workforce possesses the necessary skills.

Venezuela will therefore need to invest in its economic reputation as much as in its physical infrastructure. International confidence is an intangible asset that takes time to build and can disappear rapidly. Reforms will have to be sufficiently transparent to allow investors, trading partners, and financial institutions to assess progress. The regular publication of credible data, contract stability, and regulatory predictability could become instruments of economic diplomacy.

Institutional reconstruction will also have to incorporate the fight against corruption. It would nevertheless be insufficient to present corruption simply as a moral problem. It is also an economic problem. When a public system distributes licenses, contracts, or resources without transparency, it creates incentives to seek privileges rather than invest in productivity. Companies then devote part of their resources to obtaining administrative advantages instead of improving their products and services. The fight against corruption must therefore be understood as a competitiveness policy.

The state itself will have to change its role. It can no longer simultaneously be the principal producer, the principal employer, the principal investor, and the ultimate arbiter of all economic activity. But neither can it withdraw completely in the name of a market supposedly capable of solving every problem. Reconstruction will require a strategic state capable of defining essential infrastructure, regulating markets, protecting competition, financing certain public goods, and correcting private sector failures. The question will therefore not be whether to choose between state and market, but to determine which functions should be assumed by each.

This balance will be particularly important in innovation. Companies can create products and services, but fundamental investment in research, education, and certain scientific infrastructures often requires public support. Venezuela will have to rebuild its universities as institutions of knowledge production, not merely places of training. A modern university must be able to work with companies, participate in international projects, attract researchers, develop laboratories, and produce commercially viable innovations.

The diaspora could play a decisive role here. Thousands of Venezuelan professionals now possess experience in different economic and scientific systems. The challenge will be to create mechanisms allowing that experience to return to the country in the form of projects, partnerships, training, and investment. Reconstruction should not wait for all expatriates to return. It should enable them to participate even while remaining abroad.

This strategy could be particularly effective in technology sectors. An engineer living in Miami, Madrid, Bogotá, Santiago, Toronto, or São Paulo can contribute to a Venezuelan project without necessarily relocating immediately to Venezuela. Digital platforms make international collaboration possible in ways that would have been difficult to imagine a generation ago. A smart diaspora policy could therefore transform one of the consequences of the crisis into a resource for reconstruction.

Demographic issues will also have to be integrated into planning. Mass emigration has altered the structure of the population and the availability of skills. The return of part of the diaspora could contribute to reconstruction, but it should not be assumed that all departures will be reversed. Venezuela will therefore have to build a strategy that works with the population actually present while maintaining institutional links with those living elsewhere.

This reality requires a reassessment of the notion of national territory. In a digital world, a nation does not disappear with emigration. Family, economic, cultural, and professional networks can maintain transnational links. Venezuela could therefore develop a more connected form of economic citizenship, allowing its diaspora to participate in selected investments, educational programs, and entrepreneurial initiatives. Such an approach would be particularly useful for mobilizing savings and expertise.

The social question will nevertheless remain at the heart of reconstruction. A growth strategy that does not sufficiently reduce inequality risks creating a new polarization. Households that already possess skills, capital, and international networks will probably benefit more rapidly from new opportunities. The most vulnerable populations could remain excluded. Reconstruction will therefore have to combine growth with social mobility. Education, healthcare, vocational training, and basic infrastructure will be the principal instruments of that mobility.

This social dimension is also indispensable for political stability. Economic transitions almost always produce winners and temporary losers. Some companies disappear, some subsidies are reduced, and some jobs are transformed. If these changes are not accompanied by protection and retraining mechanisms, they can generate social resistance capable of blocking reform. Reform must therefore be ambitious enough to transform the economy, but sufficiently humane to preserve social cohesion.

The 2035 horizon will also have to incorporate the transformation of the labor market through artificial intelligence. Some administrative and repetitive jobs could be automated, while new occupations emerge in digital services, engineering, maintenance, cybersecurity, healthcare, and data management. Venezuela cannot wait for this transformation to arrive. It must prepare educational and professional systems now that will enable workers to change occupations as tasks evolve.

The fundamental question will then be the productivity of human labor. A country cannot sustainably build competitiveness solely on low wages. Such a strategy eventually encounters the limits of global competition and can trap workers in low value added activities. Venezuela should instead seek to increase the value produced by each worker through education, equipment, infrastructure, and technology.

This transformation will have an important consequence for the definition of development. For a long time, development was associated with material industrialization: producing more steel, cement, cars, or machinery. These activities remain important, but the twenty first century adds an intangible dimension. Data, software, patents, professional services, algorithms, and knowledge are also becoming economic assets. Venezuela will therefore have to build an economy capable of producing both physical goods and intangible assets.

This dual capacity could allow the country to move beyond the old opposition between an oil economy and a digital economy. The choice is not necessarily between the two. Energy can finance digital development, while digital technologies can improve the energy sector. Artificial intelligence can optimize oil operations, anticipate certain failures, improve logistics, and reduce costs. Satellite data can improve agriculture. Digital systems can modernize public administration. Technology can therefore become an instrument for transforming traditional sectors.

Success will nevertheless depend on the ability to avoid a new internal digital divide. Major cities and more privileged social groups could rapidly benefit from new technologies while some rural regions and poorer populations remain excluded. A national digital transformation strategy must therefore regard connectivity as essential public infrastructure, alongside electricity and roads.

This question leads directly to education. Venezuela’s school system in 2035 cannot simply be an improved version of the one that existed in 2025. It will have to integrate digital literacy, critical thinking, science, mathematics, foreign languages, professional skills, and lifelong learning. But it will also have to preserve a human dimension. Artificial intelligence can accelerate access to information, but it cannot replace the pedagogical relationship, the formation of judgment, responsibility, and the ability to live in a democratic society.

Technological modernization must therefore not become a new form of dehumanization. This is a real risk. A society that measures everything through data can lose the ability to regard individuals as citizens rather than statistical profiles. Venezuela will have to seek a balance between digital efficiency and human dignity. Technology should strengthen society’s capabilities rather than replace its ability to collectively determine its priorities.

This requirement gives particular depth to the generational question. Young Venezuelans are not asking only for jobs. They are asking for the possibility of imagining a future. They want to be able to study, work, travel, create a business, build a family, and participate in society without feeling that their future necessarily lies elsewhere. Economic reconstruction will therefore have to be assessed according to its ability to restore that possibility.

The return of hope is an economic indicator as important as some macroeconomic figures. When a society stops believing in its future, economic behavior changes. Families seek to emigrate, entrepreneurs move their capital, students choose careers abroad, and workers invest less in skills whose local value they cannot see. Conversely, when citizens begin to believe again that they can build something in their own country, investment in human capital increases.

This is why Venezuela’s reconstruction must be understood as a reconstruction of collective confidence. The currency is only one component of that confidence. Institutions, education, infrastructure, justice, security, and political stability are the others. A stable currency can contribute to restoring confidence, but it cannot create it alone. Confidence emerges when citizens see that rules work and that their efforts can produce lasting results.

The 2035 horizon could therefore see the emergence of a profoundly different Venezuela. Not necessarily a global power, because such an ambition would be disproportionate, but a more stable, productive, and connected regional power. A country capable of supplying energy, producing more food, developing selected industries, attracting investment, training talent, participating in regional value chains, and playing an important role in the Caribbean and South America.

Such a position would already be significant. Power is not measured solely by gross domestic product or the number of soldiers. It is also measured by a country’s ability to become useful to others without becoming dependent on them. A Venezuela capable of contributing to regional energy security, food security, Caribbean infrastructure, and selected industrial chains would possess greater influence than that conferred by its oil wealth alone.

Such a transformation would require a different foreign policy. Venezuela would have to learn to negotiate simultaneously with several centers of power, seeking complementarities rather than permanent alignments. Relations with Washington should be assessed according to economic and security interests. Relations with Beijing should be used to develop industrial and commercial capabilities. Relations with New Delhi could open opportunities in energy, pharmaceuticals, technology, and services. Relations with Europe could support institutional, scientific, and industrial modernization. Relations with Brazil and Colombia could contribute to regional integration.

Such diversification would not amount to absolute neutrality. It would be a strategy of autonomy. Venezuela could probably not avoid all international pressure, but it could reduce its vulnerability by multiplying its options. In a fragmented world, the ability to maintain several alternatives constitutes a form of power.

The success of this strategy will ultimately depend on the quality of governance. The best natural resources, investments, and technologies will not produce the expected results if institutions remain unable to coordinate public policy. Reconstruction will therefore have to be accompanied by deep administrative reform. Public administrations will need expertise, data, digital tools, and measurable objectives. The state will have to learn to evaluate its own policies and abandon those that fail to produce the expected results.

This culture of evaluation represents an important break with traditional political practices. A public policy should not be considered successful simply because it has been announced or funded. It must be judged by its effects. How many jobs have been created? How many children have improved their academic performance? How long does it take to establish a company? How much does a power outage cost? How many kilometers of roads are actually usable? What proportion of investment remains within the national economy? These questions can transform governance into a process of learning.

Venezuela in 2035 could therefore become a more pragmatic society without necessarily becoming a society without ideals. Pragmatism does not mean abandoning values. It means translating values into institutions and results. Sovereignty must produce capabilities. Social justice must produce mobility. Patriotism must produce investment in the country. Democracy must produce institutions capable of managing disagreement. Modernization must produce better opportunities for citizens.

It is at this level that the monetary rupture discussed at the beginning of this dossier could acquire its full historical significance. If it remains merely a change of currency, it will represent only a technical response to a crisis. If it forms part of a broader transformation of the state, the economy, and the country’s relationship with the world, it could become one of the visible signs of a change of era. But such a transformation will never be automatic. Venezuela could also experience superficial stabilization, an oil recovery without diversification, renewed dependence on foreign capital, or renewed political polarization. No favorable scenario is guaranteed. The country’s resources are substantial, but they do not constitute insurance against failures of governance.

The real question for 2035 will therefore be less about the quantity of oil produced or the precise form of the currency than about the quality of institutions and the country’s capacity to learn. If Venezuela succeeds in learning from its crises, using its resources to build capabilities, mobilizing its diaspora, educating its youth, and diversifying its partnerships, it could transform a period of rupture into the foundation of a new historical phase. If it merely stabilizes the symptoms without changing the underlying structures, it risks repeatedly encountering the same vulnerabilities in different forms.

History rarely offers a second chance that is so clearly identifiable. Venezuela is entering a period in which several global transformations could converge: changes in energy markets, the reorganization of value chains, competition between Washington and Beijing, the rise of India, the emergence of new middle powers, the development of artificial intelligence, the transformation of monetary systems, and the search for new forms of autonomy by countries of the Global South. This convergence can constitute a threat, but it can also offer a strategic window. The essential condition will be to understand that this window will not remain open indefinitely. Countries that tomorrow possess the best digital infrastructure, the strongest education systems, the most reliable energy capacities, and the most credible institutions will attract more capital, talent, and technology. Others risk gradually becoming consumer markets and suppliers of raw materials. Venezuela must therefore choose between these two positions before the new global value chains become firmly consolidated.

By 2035, success should not be defined by a return to former greatness. It should be defined by the creation of new national capacity. A Venezuela capable of producing more, educating better, providing better healthcare, connecting its territory more effectively, retaining more talent, mobilizing its diaspora, negotiating with several powers, and transforming its resources into human and technological capital would already be profoundly different from the country produced by successive crises.

The real turning point would come when society no longer measured its future solely through the question of who controls the oil, what currency circulates, or which international power supports the government. It would begin to measure its power through what it is capable of building itself. This may be where the most demanding definition of sovereignty for twenty first century Venezuela lies: not merely possessing resources, but possessing the capabilities necessary to determine their future.

VENEZUELA’S GEOPOLITICAL SCENARIOS: BETWEEN STRATEGIC DIVERSIFICATION AND NEW DEPENDENCY

Venezuela’s geopolitical question can no longer be approached through the binary logic that shaped much of its foreign policy discourse for decades. For a large part of the recent period, Caracas’s international policy was built around a highly politicized opposition between Washington and its adversaries, with a central role assigned to Cuba, Russia, China, and, more broadly, to the idea of a political front intended to resist American influence. That interpretation corresponded to a particular historical period and produced alliances, solidarities, and cooperation mechanisms whose effects should not be underestimated. But it is becoming increasingly insufficient to understand the Venezuela that will have to emerge from the current crisis. The international system is no longer organized around two ideological blocs comparable to those of the Cold War, and even contemporary multipolarity does not produce a homogeneous grouping of powers opposed to the West. Rather, it produces fluid competition in which states seek different partners according to their energy, commercial, technological, financial, and security needs. In this new environment, Venezuela will probably have to abandon the logic of permanently choosing a camp and adopt instead that of strategic diversification in its external relations.

This transformation does not mean that relations with the United States will lose their importance. On the contrary, they will have to be understood with greater realism. Geographic proximity, the historical depth of economic relations, migration flows, the importance of the American market, and the weight of the dollar make the United States an unavoidable actor for Venezuela, regardless of the ideological preferences of the government in power. The strategic question is therefore not whether Caracas should be close to or distant from Washington in the abstract. It is under what conditions a relationship with Washington can contribute to Venezuela’s reconstruction without reproducing excessive political or economic dependence. This distinction between cooperation and alignment will probably be one of the keys to Venezuelan diplomacy in the twenty first century.

Recent developments in American policy also show that Washington itself is increasingly operating according to categories that differ from the traditional model of unconditional economic openness. Tariff policy, technological restrictions, supply chain security, sanctions, energy policies, and demands placed on allies all point toward a more strategic conception of economic relations. Trade is now directly associated with national security, industrial competitiveness, and geopolitical power. Venezuela will have to understand this transformation. It will not simply be negotiating with an American market, but with a power that regards certain economic dependencies as strategic vulnerabilities.

This new geography of American power can create opportunities for Caracas, particularly in energy, but it also imposes limits. Venezuela cannot expect the importance of its hydrocarbon reserves to neutralize every other consideration in American policy. Security, migration, governance, sanctions, and regional stability will remain part of the equation. A lasting relationship will therefore have to be built across several areas simultaneously. Energy could provide a major entry point, but it cannot be the sole foundation of the relationship.

Proximity to the United States also offers an advantage that Venezuela should not underestimate: potential access to an enormous market and to an exceptional financial, technological, and university ecosystem. An intelligent reconstruction policy would seek to transform this geographic proximity into an economic advantage. Venezuela could attract investment in energy, agribusiness, services, infrastructure, and selected manufacturing activities provided it gradually rebuilds the legal and institutional confidence necessary to support such investment. American companies could then become economic partners among many others rather than instruments of ideological confrontation.

China represents another essential dimension of this strategy. Over recent decades, Beijing has developed a significant presence across Global South economies, particularly through infrastructure, trade, financing, and industrial investment. For Venezuela, China is a particularly important partner because of its financial, industrial, and technological capabilities and its role in global energy markets. But the relationship with Beijing will also have to be reassessed according to national capacity criteria. Venezuela will not necessarily benefit from replacing one dependency with another. It will benefit more from using competition among partners to obtain better conditions for financing, technology transfer, training, and market access.

This distinction is fundamental. Diversification does not mean multiplying foreign flags over national infrastructure. It means creating a structure in which no single partner can easily impose a critical dependency on the country. If China finances an infrastructure project, Venezuela should seek to guarantee the training of national technicians, the participation of local companies, contractual transparency, and the possibility of using that infrastructure to develop other activities. If an American company invests in energy, the same principle should apply. Strategic sovereignty begins when a country evaluates investments not only according to their monetary value, but according to the capabilities they leave behind.

India could play a role in this architecture that remains insufficiently explored. Its particular position in the international system allows it to maintain relations with Washington, Moscow, the Gulf states, Europe, and the developing world without placing itself entirely under the authority of a single center of power. Its economy, pharmaceutical industry, digital capabilities, energy needs, and demographic weight make it a potential partner for Venezuela. Energy cooperation could be complemented by partnerships in pharmaceuticals, information technology, scientific training, and selected services. The value of a relationship with New Delhi would lie precisely in its ability to expand Caracas’s diplomatic space.

South Korea could represent another strategic partner, but according to a different logic. Its strength lies less in natural resources than in its ability to transform technology, industry, and human capital into economic power. Electronics, infrastructure, telecommunications, automotive industries, shipbuilding, and research could offer opportunities for cooperation. For Venezuela, a relationship with Seoul could be particularly useful in a strategy of reindustrialization and technological modernization. It would also demonstrate that a diversified foreign policy need not be limited to traditional great powers.

Europe will also retain an important place. Despite the political and economic difficulties it faces, the European Union remains a major center of regulation, research, financing, and trade. Its importance lies not only in its markets. European standards influence an increasingly significant share of global commerce, particularly in environmental, digital, industrial, and food related fields. For Venezuela, understanding and gradually complying with these standards could become an advantage for future exports. A relationship with Europe could therefore be understood as an investment in institutional modernization as much as a commercial relationship.

Brazil is probably the most important regional partner for Venezuela’s geopolitical reconstruction. Its economic size, population, diplomatic influence, geographic proximity, and role in South America make it an unavoidable actor. A stable relationship with Brasília could facilitate trade, energy cooperation, cross border infrastructure, food security, and regional integration. It could also reduce Venezuela’s dependence on relations with extra regional powers.

Colombia has comparable importance on a different scale. The shared border, human flows, trade, and geographic proximity make it impossible to develop a sustainable Venezuelan policy without taking Bogotá into account. Relations between the two countries should gradually be understood as a relationship of regional interdependence rather than merely as a border security issue. Infrastructure, labor markets, agricultural trade, energy, and migration management can all become areas of cooperation. A stable and productive border would be a strategic asset for both countries.

This regional dimension becomes even more important when Venezuela is placed within the Caribbean space. The country possesses a considerable maritime coastline and lies close to trade routes linking South America, the Caribbean, North America, and the Panama Canal. This position could give it greater geoeconomic importance than a strictly South American reading would suggest. Venezuela could become a major energy and logistics actor in the Caribbean if its port, energy, and industrial infrastructure were modernized.

Relations with Cuba, however, would have to be reconsidered. For years, Caracas and Havana embodied a political solidarity that extended far beyond immediate economic interests. That relationship produced exchanges in healthcare, education, and other sectors. But the generational and economic context has changed. Cuba faces its own structural constraints and must itself adapt to a global economy that has been profoundly transformed. For Venezuela, relations with Havana could remain important historically and culturally, but they would benefit from evolving toward pragmatic cooperation centered on areas in which the two countries possess genuinely complementary capabilities.

This evolution is significant because it illustrates the broader transformation of Venezuelan foreign policy. International relations in the twenty first century can no longer be sustainably based on ideological proximity alone. Governments can be politically close while possessing incompatible economies or limited financial capabilities. Conversely, politically different countries can develop highly effective partnerships in energy, technology, or trade. Contemporary diplomacy must therefore learn to separate political disagreements from economic interests whenever possible.

Russia represents precisely such a case in which this distinction is necessary. Moscow remains a historic partner of Caracas in several areas, but the war in Ukraine has significantly altered Russia’s available resources, strategic priorities, and economic constraints. Venezuela will have to take this new reality into account. The relationship may remain important in certain areas, but it can no longer be regarded as one of the exclusive pillars of an international strategy. Diversification becomes all the more necessary because Russia’s economic and technological capabilities are now heavily committed to its own strategic priorities.

The war in Ukraine has also produced a broader lesson. It has shown that states possessing significant energy, military, or natural resources can retain substantial resilience, but can also face high economic and technological costs when they enter prolonged confrontation with a much broader coalition. For Venezuela, this experience should lead it to prioritize resilience over permanent confrontation. The best protection against external pressure remains a diversified economy, a well educated population, and strong institutions.

The BRICS question should be approached in the same spirit. The idea of a world less dominated by Western institutions reflects an important historical reality. Many countries of the Global South seek greater representation, financing, and decision making capacity. But it would be excessive to regard the BRICS as a homogeneous political bloc capable of operating according to the logic of twentieth century military alliances. The interests of China, India, Brazil, Russia, and other members are not identical. Venezuela should therefore avoid turning its potential participation in this space into a new geopolitical orthodoxy.

The true value of this multipolar environment could be different. It can offer Venezuela more commercial, financial, and diplomatic options. It can facilitate access to certain markets and cooperation mechanisms. It can also contribute to the diversification of international relations. But its value will depend on Venezuela’s ability to negotiate. A weak economy can participate in multiple organizations without obtaining meaningful benefits. A rebuilding economy endowed with strategic resources, credible rules, and a capable diplomatic service can transform its geographic position into bargaining power.

The question of currencies illustrates this transformation. If the dollar continues to play a central role in the Venezuelan economy, the country will also need to monitor the evolution of other international payment systems and currencies. China is seeking to expand the international use of the renminbi, India is developing certain payment infrastructures, and several countries are exploring mechanisms to reduce their exposure to financial systems dominated by the United States. Venezuela should follow these developments without falling into the illusion that an alternative monetary system could rapidly replace the dollar on a global scale.

Pragmatism requires distinguishing payment diversification from complete monetary substitution. A country can use several currencies in foreign trade without abandoning financial instruments that remain the most liquid and widely accepted. Genuine autonomy consists in having several options rather than ideologically choosing one currency against another.

The same logic could apply to technology. Venezuela should not depend on a single provider of digital systems, telecommunications, satellites, or cloud services. But it would also be unrealistic to seek to produce all such technologies domestically immediately. The strategy could consist of combining several foreign suppliers while gradually developing certain national capabilities considered critical. This approach would reduce risks without imposing an impossible technological autarky.

Cybersecurity will become a major issue here. A digitized economy is also an economy exposed to cyberattacks. Electricity networks, banks, hospitals, public administrations, and energy infrastructure can become strategic targets. Venezuela will therefore have to incorporate cybersecurity into its understanding of national sovereignty. Unmanaged digital dependence can become as dangerous as energy dependence.

This transformation of sovereignty leads to a new definition of power. In the twentieth century, a country could measure much of its power through its armed forces, territory, natural resources, and alliances. In the twenty first century, it must also measure its ability to produce data, protect its networks, train engineers, develop technologies, attract capital, and control certain critical infrastructures. Venezuela will therefore have to modernize not only its foreign policy, but its very conception of national security.

This new conception will have consequences for relations with Washington as well as Beijing. Both powers seek to protect their technological and industrial supply chains. They can therefore become partners, but they can also exert pressure when their strategic interests diverge. Venezuela will have to learn to navigate between these interests without believing that difficult choices can always be avoided. Diversification does not guarantee the absence of constraints. It simply increases the number of available options.

By 2035, three possible geopolitical models could therefore emerge for Caracas.

The first would be that of a Venezuela primarily aligned with Washington. This option could offer significant economic advantages, particularly if energy and trade relations were normalized. It could facilitate access to Western capital and accelerate certain reforms. But it would also carry the risk of excessive dependence on a single partner and a reduction in the country’s diplomatic room for maneuver.

The second would be that of a Venezuela strongly integrated into the China Russia axis and broader political structures of the Global South. This orientation could provide alternatives to Western markets and strengthen certain energy and industrial relationships. But it would also carry risks, particularly the possibility of reproducing asymmetric dependence and limiting access to certain technologies, capital, and Western markets.

The third model would be that of an open strategic autonomy. This is probably the most demanding scenario, but also the one that would offer the greatest room for maneuver. The country would maintain important economic relations with the United States, develop partnerships with China, deepen relations with India, South Korea, and Europe, strengthen integration with Brazil and Colombia, maintain selected links with Russia and Cuba, and use multilateral institutions of the Global South without becoming captive to any of them.

This third model would not constitute perfect neutrality. No modern state can remain completely neutral on every issue. It would instead represent a policy of differentiation: cooperating with one partner in one area while maintaining a different relationship with another in another area. The ability to separate individual issues has become one of the essential characteristics of middle power diplomacy.

To succeed with such a strategy, Venezuela will nevertheless have to considerably improve the quality of its economic diplomacy. Embassies can no longer function solely as political representations. They will have to become platforms for identifying markets, investment, technologies, university partnerships, and industrial cooperation. Diplomats will need to understand value chains, trade policy, technological standards, financial markets, and energy transformations.

This professionalization will be particularly important because competition among states for investment is becoming stronger. Venezuela will not be the only country possessing energy resources or labor. It will have to convince investors that its geographic and natural advantages are accompanied by lasting improvements in governance. In this context, legal stability will become a form of diplomacy.

Relations with the Caribbean could also be profoundly transformed. Venezuela possesses energy capabilities that could contribute to the energy security of several island states, but this influence should not be conceived as an instrument of political domination. A new approach could prioritize transparent commercial partnerships, shared infrastructure, energy security mechanisms, and joint projects in climate, logistics, and food security.

The Caribbean itself is gradually becoming a more important strategic space because of global trade, maritime routes, undersea digital infrastructure, climate change, and geopolitical tensions. Venezuela could play a role in this emerging architecture if it succeeds in stabilizing its economy and modernizing its infrastructure. Its geographic position could then become an asset of power rather than simply a geographic fact.

Climate change adds another dimension to this strategy. Venezuela’s energy and urban infrastructure will face growing climate related risks. Reconstruction will have to incorporate resilience from the design stage. Ports, roads, electricity networks, agricultural systems, and cities will have to be built to withstand extreme events more effectively. Climate policy should therefore not be regarded solely as an international obligation. It should become a component of national security.

This broader understanding of security would also allow for a better interpretation of migration. Population movements between Venezuela, Colombia, the Caribbean, the United States, and other regions cannot be treated solely as a humanitarian or policing issue. They are also an economic, demographic, and geopolitical variable. Successful reconstruction could reduce migration pressures, while incomplete recovery could sustain departures. Regional policies will therefore have to incorporate this dimension into their cooperation strategies.

Venezuela’s geopolitical power will thus depend to a large extent on its ability to become a functioning country again. This may appear paradoxical, but the first condition for lasting international influence is not external rhetoric. It is domestic capacity. A state that functions, produces, exports, educates, and protects its citizens naturally possesses greater diplomatic room for maneuver than a state whose resources are consumed by internal crises.

This observation brings us back to the starting point of this section. Venezuela should not seek a new protector. It should seek a new position. That position will not be defined solely by its alliances, but by the quality of its domestic capabilities. The best geopolitical strategy would therefore be an economic, industrial, technological, and human strategy that gradually makes the country less vulnerable to the decisions of others.

True strategic autonomy will never be absolute. Even great powers depend on foreign markets, technologies, resources, and partners. The United States depends on certain global industrial supply chains. China depends on certain markets and technologies. India depends on external energy resources. Europe depends on certain raw materials and technologies. Russia depends on certain Asian markets. Interdependence has become a structural characteristic of the international system. The question is therefore no longer how to eliminate every dependency, but how to prevent a particular dependency from becoming an existential vulnerability.

For Venezuela, this distinction could become the foundation of a new foreign policy doctrine. The country could accept numerous interdependencies while seeking to avoid critical dependencies. It could export energy without depending on a single market. Import technologies without depending on a single supplier. Attract capital without surrendering an excessive share of its decision making capacity. Use several currencies and payment systems without losing all capacity for economic policy. Cooperate with several powers without becoming the instrument of any of them.

This doctrine would be profoundly different from the one that shaped part of the twentieth century. It would be neither anti American nor pro American, neither anti Chinese nor pro Chinese, neither anti Russian nor pro Russian. It would first and foremost be pro Venezuelan, in the most demanding sense of the term: defining national interests, building the capabilities necessary to defend them, and selecting partnerships according to their contribution to those interests.

It is from this perspective that monetary transformation acquires a geopolitical dimension. An economy that uses the dollar extensively must understand both the advantages and the risks of that situation. An economy seeking to diversify its partners must understand alternative financial mechanisms. A state seeking to preserve its autonomy must have credible fiscal policy, a functioning banking system, and sufficient reserves. Monetary geopolitics can therefore never be separated from the quality of domestic governance.

Venezuela could thus become a particularly interesting example of the new politics of middle powers. It does not possess the economic power of the United States or China, but it possesses substantial energy resources, a strategic geographic position, a significant population, a global diaspora, and a diplomatic history that gives it a degree of international visibility. If these assets were combined with a more stable economy and more effective institutions, the country could regain significant regional influence.

The essential question would then no longer be: With whom should Venezuela align?

It would become: What national capabilities does Venezuela want to build, and which partners can help it build them without replacing them?

This reformulation may appear simple, but it contains a genuine strategic revolution. It transforms foreign policy from a search for alliances into a policy of power building. It transforms international relations from a debate over ideological loyalties into a permanent negotiation over interests, expertise, and capabilities. Finally, it places the population at the center of geopolitics, because national power can be sustainable only if it genuinely improves the living conditions of those who constitute the nation.

By 2035, Venezuela could therefore occupy a very different position in the international system. It could remain a major energy country while also becoming a regional agribusiness, logistics, and digital actor. It could maintain an important relationship with the United States while developing deeper partnerships with China, India, Europe, and Asia. It could strengthen relations with its neighbors without abandoning its autonomy. It could use institutions of the Global South without allowing itself to become trapped in a new bloc mentality. Finally, it could transform its diaspora into a network of capabilities rather than merely a consequence of crisis.

But this possibility depends on one fundamental condition: geopolitics must cease to be used as a substitute for domestic policy. No international alliance can replace an effective administration, a credible currency, a functioning education system, a competitive industry, and a predictable judicial system. Foreign partners can provide capital, technology, and markets. They cannot build, in Venezuela’s place, the institutions that must sustain those resources.

The next stage of Venezuelan history will therefore be determined by the intersection of domestic and foreign policy. Economic reconstruction will give the country greater diplomatic room for maneuver, while diversified diplomacy can contribute to economic reconstruction. These two dimensions will have to advance simultaneously. It is this interaction that will allow Venezuela to move from a position that has often been reactive within the international system to one that is increasingly strategic.

The world taking shape around Venezuela will be neither American, nor Chinese, nor Russian, nor European, nor simply multipolar in the classical sense. It will be a world of intertwined powers, technological rivalries, cross dependencies, and shifting coalitions. In this environment, the states best positioned to endure will not necessarily be those that have chosen the most powerful camp, but those that have built sufficient capabilities to change partners without changing their sovereignty. For Venezuela, that capacity could become the very definition of its new independence.

OIL AFTER OIL: TURNING ENERGY RENT INTO INDUSTRIAL, TECHNOLOGICAL AND HUMAN POWER

Venezuela is entering a historic period in which its greatest natural advantage could simultaneously become its greatest asset and one of its greatest vulnerabilities. With the world’s largest proven oil reserves, the country possesses a resource whose geopolitical value remains considerable despite the transformations underway in the global energy system, climate policies, the gradual electrification of certain sectors, and the rise of new technologies. Yet the decisive question for the coming decades will no longer be simply how much oil Venezuela can extract, but what it will do with the wealth generated by that extraction. A country may possess enormous reserves without succeeding in building a competitive industry, a high-performing scientific system, or a technologically advanced economy. Conversely, a period of resource rents can become a formidable instrument of transformation when it is converted into human capital, infrastructure, productive capacity, research, and institutions capable of generating wealth long after the gradual depletion of the original resource. The real Venezuelan challenge, therefore, is not to abandon oil abruptly, but to gradually move beyond dependence on oil.

This distinction makes it possible to move beyond an increasingly simplistic opposition between an oil economy and the energy transition. Venezuela has no reason to regard hydrocarbons as an activity belonging to the past when oil will continue to play an important role in the global economy for many years to come. But it would be equally imprudent to regard that demand as guaranteed for generations. Climate policies, changes in transportation, improvements in energy efficiency, substitution technologies, shifts in consumer behavior, and massive investment in new energy sources could gradually alter the structure of the market. The rational strategy is therefore to use the historical window that remains available to transform part of today’s energy rents into economic capabilities that will survive the rent itself. Oil must be able to finance the Venezuela of tomorrow rather than merely preserve the Venezuela of yesterday.

This strategy requires an energy policy organized around two complementary time horizons. The first is to restore the productive capacity of the oil and gas sector, because this activity can rapidly generate export revenues, attract investment, and provide the resources needed for reconstruction. The second is to use part of those revenues to prepare the economy for an environment in which hydrocarbons will progressively account for a smaller share of global value creation. These two objectives are therefore not contradictory. The real mistake would be to weaken the oil sector before building the sectors capable of gradually replacing it, just as it would be dangerous to rebuild oil production without using the new rents to diversify the economy. The strategic choice lies precisely between these two failures.

The reconstruction of the energy industry must begin with a fundamental reality: an underground reserve is not yet economic wealth. It becomes wealth when a country possesses the capital, technologies, infrastructure, skills, logistical capabilities, and markets required to extract, transport, process, and sell it competitively. This distinction is particularly important for Venezuela’s heavy and extra-heavy crude, whose development requires substantial investment, specialized technologies, and complex infrastructure. The recovery of the sector therefore cannot probably rely solely on national public resources. It will require international partnerships, private capital, technical expertise, and a regulatory environment capable of reassuring investors. But these partnerships must be designed around a new requirement: the objective must not simply be to produce more, but to progressively rebuild comprehensive national capacity.

The difference between a simple oil recovery and a genuine energy renaissance lies precisely here. Under the first model, foreign capital finances operations, technologies are imported, hydrocarbons are extracted and exported, and part of the value leaves the country without sufficient structural transformation. Under the second, foreign investment becomes an instrument of industrial reconstruction. Foreign companies can provide capital and technology, but they must also contribute to the development of domestic suppliers, the training of engineers, the creation of research centers, the modernization of universities, and the emergence of a network of specialized enterprises. The success of an energy policy should therefore no longer be measured solely by the number of barrels produced, but by the full range of economic, scientific, and human capabilities created around those barrels.

Venezuela could thus develop a genuine national energy-services industry in which engineering, maintenance, geology, industrial safety, logistics, specialized software, data analysis, robotics, and environmental technologies become sectors in their own right. This evolution would make it possible to retain more value within the country while creating skills that could eventually be exported. A Venezuelan company capable of developing software for monitoring oil facilities or predictive-maintenance technology could eventually sell its services to other producers. An engineer trained in oil operations could later work in infrastructure, transportation, telecommunications, or renewable energy. Diversification would therefore begin within the energy sector itself.

Artificial intelligence could accelerate this transformation. The oil industry is particularly well suited to the use of big data, predictive models, geological imaging, automated systems, and real-time monitoring tools. Reservoir analysis, anomaly detection, operational optimization, and maintenance can progressively be improved through digital technologies. Venezuela could therefore turn the reconstruction of its energy industry into a laboratory for developing national expertise in industrial artificial intelligence, data science, and automation. This would be particularly strategic because it would create skills that could be transferred to other sectors of the economy.

The same logic should be applied to natural gas and petrochemicals. Gas development could contribute to domestic energy security, support electricity generation, and supply certain industrial activities, while petrochemicals could allow Venezuela to transform part of its hydrocarbons into higher-value products. Fertilizers are particularly interesting in this regard because they directly connect energy, industry, and food security. An economy that uses its energy resources to produce agricultural inputs can reduce certain imports, improve agricultural productivity, and simultaneously create a domestic industry. Oil and gas would then cease to be merely export commodities and become inputs into a more complex economy.

National reconstruction offers another opportunity. Venezuela will require large quantities of cement, steel, glass, electrical equipment, machinery, construction materials, and engineering services. Part of this demand could be met by a progressively rebuilt national or regional industrial base. Energy revenues could then finance infrastructure that would itself create industrial demand, stimulating employment, vocational training, and private investment. The objective would be to create a virtuous cycle in which energy rents do not disappear into current consumption, but are transformed into productive assets.

This is where one of the great differences between a rentier economy and an economy that uses rents intelligently can be found. In the first model, revenues from a natural resource primarily finance imports and current expenditure. When international prices rise, consumption increases; when they fall, the fiscal crisis returns. In the second model, a substantial portion of exceptional revenues is transformed into infrastructure, human capital, research, enterprises, and technologies. Imports are then used primarily to acquire the equipment required to expand future national productive capacity. Rent thus becomes a means of moving beyond rent.

This transformation will require fiscal discipline that Venezuela can no longer postpone. An increase in oil revenues will naturally create political pressure for higher public spending, wages, subsidies, and social transfers. Such expenditures may be necessary, particularly in a society that has experienced a profound deterioration in living conditions, but they cannot be structured as though oil revenues were permanently stable. A credible fiscal rule should distinguish permanent revenues from exceptional revenues and prevent structural spending from becoming excessively dependent on fluctuations in energy markets.

Within this architecture, rebuilding a sovereign wealth fund could be an important instrument, provided that it is subject to strict rules of governance, transparency, and auditing. A national fund can make it possible to accumulate part of the revenues when prices are favorable, protect the budget during adverse cycles, and finance long-term investment. But its existence alone will not be enough. Everything will depend on the rules governing who can use its resources, under what conditions, according to what criteria, and with what degree of public oversight. A politically opaque sovereign fund could become a new form of rentierism; a properly governed fund could become an instrument of stabilization and intergenerational wealth transfer.

The principle should be to recognize three simultaneous obligations. One part of energy wealth must address the legitimate needs of the present population, another must finance the country’s productive transformation, and a third should be preserved for future generations. This gives oil an intergenerational dimension. The resource belongs to the present, but its extraction reduces the natural wealth available to the future. Transforming part of this non-renewable wealth into schools, universities, infrastructure, technologies, enterprises, and knowledge is therefore a form of national wealth transmission.

This dimension is particularly important in a country that has suffered a major loss of human capital. Venezuela now has a diaspora that includes professionals working in energy, medicine, engineering, finance, universities, technology, and many other fields. Reconstruction should not be conceived solely as the physical return of these people, but as the creation of a global network of Venezuelan expertise. Engineers established abroad could participate in training programs, research projects, technical audits, or joint ventures without necessarily abandoning their professional lives overseas immediately. The circulation of expertise could therefore precede the return of some individuals.

The energy sector could become one of the first areas in which such a strategy is implemented. Infrastructure reconstruction will quickly require specialized expertise that the country may sometimes have to seek abroad. The diaspora can serve as a bridge between international knowledge and national needs. But for this relationship to work, institutions must be created that know how to value expertise, ensure project transparency, and guarantee that mobilized skills can genuinely influence technical decisions. Simply invoking the diaspora will not be enough; it must be offered a credible professional framework.

Oil will also retain a major geopolitical function. Global demand will not disappear quickly, and hydrocarbons will continue to influence relations among major powers, markets, and producing states. The reconstruction of Venezuelan production could therefore alter energy balances across the Caribbean, Latin America, and, under certain circumstances, global markets. This influence must nevertheless be exercised cautiously. Energy can become an instrument of lasting cooperation when it rests on predictable contracts, transparent investment, and stable commercial relations; it becomes far more fragile when it is constantly transformed into an instrument of political confrontation.

Such predictability could become one of Venezuela’s principal competitive advantages. Energy markets do not value natural reserves alone. They also assess investment security, contract stability, infrastructure quality, production costs, taxation, and the ability to plan over several decades. If Caracas succeeds in rebuilding a credible legal environment, clarifying the rules governing investment, and ensuring greater revenue transparency, the country could attract substantial capital. Geology gives Venezuela a natural advantage; governance must transform that advantage into an economic one.

It would nevertheless be dangerous to rebuild the oil industry on the assumption of perpetually rising global demand. Investors themselves increasingly assess projects against multiple energy-transition scenarios. Some assets could remain profitable for several decades, while others could become more difficult to finance if global demand evolves more rapidly. Venezuela should therefore prioritize projects capable of remaining competitive under different market scenarios rather than betting on a single forecast for oil prices.

This scenario-based culture must become part of national planning. A strategic Venezuela should be able to consider simultaneously a scenario of high global demand, a scenario of accelerated transition, an intermediate scenario, and a scenario characterized by new geopolitical or financial shocks. The most resilient infrastructure and investments will be those that remain useful under several of these configurations. A national strategy can no longer be built around a single prediction, but around the capacity to absorb uncertainty.

The energy transition should also be viewed as an opportunity for diversification rather than an existential threat. Venezuela possesses solar, hydroelectric, and wind resources that could contribute to modernizing its energy system. The objective should not be to replace hydrocarbons abruptly, but to gradually build a more diversified and resilient energy network. Improving the electricity system is, moreover, a prerequisite for almost every other economic transformation: industry, digital services, healthcare, education, commerce, and everyday life all depend on reliable electricity.

This modernization must include the networks themselves. The contemporary energy transition is not simply a matter of changing energy sources. It involves smarter grids, storage systems, more sophisticated demand management, modern meters, distributed-generation capacity, and digital tools capable of anticipating needs. Venezuela will therefore have to invest simultaneously in energy and in the technologies that make it possible to manage energy more effectively. This convergence between energy and digital technology could become one of the most important sectors of its economic transformation.

The question of mineral resources must be approached with the same caution. The digital and energy transitions are increasing demand for numerous minerals needed for batteries, electrical grids, electronics, and advanced technologies. Venezuela possesses significant mineral resources, but their exploitation should not mechanically reproduce the rentier model. Exporting another category of raw minerals without developing the associated skills, infrastructure, and industries would merely replace one dependency with another. The objective should be to seek, where economically and technologically viable, longer value chains that allow more wealth to remain within the country.

The environmental dimension is inseparable from this reflection. Energy and mining reconstruction cannot reproduce the weakest standards of the past. International markets are becoming increasingly sensitive to the environmental conditions under which production takes place, while local populations are demanding greater protection of territories and natural resources. Venezuela could transform this constraint into an advantage by developing expertise in environmental monitoring, ecosystem restoration, water management, emissions reduction, and cleaner production technologies. A national environmental-services industry could thus emerge around energy reconstruction.

Ultimately, this diversification should lead toward an economy in which oil remains important without determining the entire productive system. Engineering services, digital technologies, finance, logistics, modern agriculture, food processing, healthcare, education, tourism, and selected manufacturing industries could gradually occupy a larger role. The objective would not be to artificially create fashionable sectors, but to build more complex value chains on the basis of Venezuela’s existing advantages. Geography, energy resources, human capital, maritime access, and neighboring markets already provide a sufficiently strong foundation for such a transformation.

Logistics deserves particular attention in this regard. Venezuela’s position between South America, the Caribbean, and North American markets gives it potential that extends far beyond the export of hydrocarbons. Modernizing ports, roads, customs infrastructure, telecommunications, and transportation systems could turn the country into a space for the movement and transformation of goods. Oil revenues could finance part of this infrastructure, but its economic function would extend far beyond the energy sector.

Tourism could also become a component of this diversification. The country possesses considerable natural and cultural assets, but tourism development depends on conditions that go well beyond the attraction of landscapes: security, infrastructure, air connectivity, service quality, institutional stability, and international reputation. Energy and urban reconstruction could therefore gradually create the conditions required for a more competitive tourism sector. Here again, diversification would be cumulative: better electricity improves hotels, hospitals, businesses, and transportation; better infrastructure facilitates tourism; more visitors create jobs and foreign-exchange earnings.

This logic explains why the notion of “oil after oil” does not mean the imminent disappearance of hydrocarbons. It means that oil must cease to constitute the exclusive center of wealth creation. An economy can continue exporting hydrocarbons while becoming progressively less dependent on their revenues. The measure of success would therefore not be the disappearance of oil from national statistics, but the reduction of its ability to determine on its own the public budget, currency, exports, employment, foreign policy, and social balances.

This transformation also implies a change in the social contract. A rentier economy tends to place the state at the center of resource distribution, making political competition highly dependent on control of the rent. A more diversified economy distributes the capacity to create wealth more broadly among businesses, workers, farmers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors. The state does not disappear; its role changes. It must gradually move from a primarily distributive role toward a more capacity-building role, creating the conditions that allow citizens to develop their own economic capabilities.

This evolution obviously does not mean that social protection should be abandoned. On the contrary, reconstruction will probably require significant resources for healthcare, education, protection of vulnerable populations, and essential infrastructure. But sustainable social protection cannot depend exclusively on a volatile rent. It must be accompanied by investment in education, vocational training, credit, infrastructure, and access to markets so that citizens gradually become more capable producers of wealth and less dependent on centralized redistribution.

The reform of state-owned enterprises should be examined from the same perspective. Some activities may justify a public presence, particularly in infrastructure and certain strategic sectors. But public ownership does not guarantee efficiency. Enterprises must have professional governance, transparent accounting, measurable objectives, and sufficient autonomy to make economically rational decisions. In other sectors, public-private partnerships or private investment may be more effective. The debate should therefore no longer be trapped in a public-versus-private opposition, but should focus on each model’s ability to generate value, employment, innovation, and quality services.

A diversified economy will also need a deeper financial architecture. Venezuela cannot depend indefinitely on oil revenues or external financing. Rebuilding banks, insurance, capital markets, savings mechanisms, and investment instruments will gradually make it possible to mobilize more domestic resources. The diaspora could also participate in this architecture, not only through family remittances, but through productive investment, development bonds, specialized funds, and mechanisms allowing overseas expertise to participate in national projects.

Financial credibility will be directly linked to transparency. A Venezuela seeking to attract investment will have to publish reliable data on its energy production, revenues, expenditures, contracts, reserves, and financial commitments. Transparency is not simply a moral or administrative requirement. It reduces uncertainty and can help lower the cost of capital. In an economy seeking to attract massive investment after a prolonged crisis, every improvement in institutional predictability can have considerable economic value.

The creation of independent bodies for auditing, evaluating, and supervising the energy sector could strengthen this credibility. These institutions should possess genuine technical expertise and regularly publish their assessments. Natural-resource management should no longer be perceived as a matter reserved for a handful of political officials or companies. It should become an area in which public information, independent expertise, and institutional oversight play a permanent role.

Venezuela could then transform its energy policy into a genuine form of economic diplomacy. Energy contracts could be linked to training programs, industrial investment, regional infrastructure, and research projects. Cooperation with the United States, China, India, Europe, South Korea, Brazil, or other partners would no longer be evaluated solely according to the volume of capital provided, but according to the national capabilities created. This approach would place energy within a broader strategy of economic power.

Such a strategy would also change the country’s international image. For years, Venezuela has been associated primarily with its oil reserves, political crises, and geopolitical tensions. Successful reconstruction could gradually produce a different image: that of an energy-producing country in transformation, capable of attracting investment, developing skills, building technologies, and actively participating in new global value chains. International reputation would then itself become an economic asset.

The success of this transformation will nevertheless depend on one fundamental political decision: not to consume the next rent in its entirety. The temptation will be strong, because an improvement in production and energy prices would immediately create resources that the population will need after years of hardship. But if most additional revenues were devoted to current consumption, the country could find itself a few years later facing the same vulnerabilities as before. The true historical break would consist in accepting that each generation cannot consume entirely a form of wealth that should also finance the next.

By 2035, Venezuela’s success should therefore not be assessed solely by the volume of oil produced. It should be measured by the proportion of the population with access to quality education, the capacity of national companies to export, the reliability of the electricity grid, the depth of the financial system, the quality of infrastructure, the number of researchers and engineers, the diversification of exports, technological capacity, and institutional resilience. Oil would remain important, but it would no longer be the sole indicator of the country’s economic health.

Venezuela would then possess a rare historical opportunity: to convert a twentieth-century resource into twenty-first-century capabilities. Oil could finance artificial intelligence, universities, digital networks, smart infrastructure, laboratories, technology companies, modern agriculture, and processing industries. Wealth extracted from the subsoil could thus be transformed into intellectual and productive wealth. This is probably the only way to give energy rents a truly historical dimension.

The paradox would be deeply revealing. Venezuela would not necessarily need to abandon oil rapidly in order to enter the post-oil era. Rather, it would need to use the remaining period of high energy value to build the economic, human, and technological conditions that will make it possible to live with less dependence once the global energy system has changed. The transition would therefore not be an abrupt rupture, but a gradual transformation of the national structure of value creation.

The real objective would not be to produce less oil at any cost, but to ensure that every additional barrel contributes to reducing the need for the next one. Such a strategy would transform rent into capital, capital into capabilities, capabilities into productivity, and productivity into economic sovereignty. Above all, it would place the human being back at the center of a form of wealth that for too long has been measured primarily in barrels, dollars, and reserves. Only under this condition could Venezuela truly enter the post-oil era without abandoning oil, but by gradually ceasing to be its prisoner.

CURRENCY AS INFRASTRUCTURE OF POWER: DOLLARIZATION, SOVEREIGNTY AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ECONOMIC STATE

The monetary question can no longer be treated as a simple technical controversy opposing the bolivar to the dollar. In Venezuela’s case, currency stands at the intersection of the economy, trust, sovereignty, collective memory, and the country’s geopolitical transformation. The possible consolidation of a largely dollarized economy would therefore represent more than a change in the instruments used daily by households and businesses. It could signify a much deeper transformation in the relationship between the state, currency, and society. For much of the twentieth century, national currency was regarded as one of the clearest symbols of sovereignty. The twenty-first century, however, requires this conception to be reconsidered. In a globalized, digital, and financially interconnected economy, sovereignty is no longer measured solely by a state’s ability to issue its own currency, but also by its ability to guarantee contractual stability, the security of savings, the fluidity of transactions, the credibility of institutions, and its population’s access to global financial infrastructure.

The possible long-term marginalization of the bolivar should therefore not be interpreted solely as the failure of a national currency. It would also be the result of a prolonged erosion of confidence in the institutions responsible for protecting it. A currency gradually loses its social function when citizens no longer want to use it to save, set prices, enter into long-term contracts, or preserve their wealth. At that point, the problem goes far beyond monetary policy. It becomes institutional. People naturally seek a more stable unit of account, a more reliable means of payment, or a more credible store of value. Dollarization then appears less as an ideological decision than as a social response to accumulated loss of confidence.

This distinction is essential to understanding why a possible official decision to consolidate dollarization could have a considerable political effect. It would not necessarily mean that Venezuela was renouncing every form of economic sovereignty. It could instead acknowledge a reality already deeply embedded in economic behavior. The real question would then be whether the state can rebuild sovereignty not around the abstract possession of a national currency, but around the concrete ability to guarantee stability, production, investment, and economic mobility for its population.

Such an evolution would nevertheless raise a fundamental question: what becomes of economic policy when a country no longer fully controls its monetary instrument? The answer is less straightforward than a simple opposition between sovereignty and the absence of sovereignty. Losing the ability to freely issue a national currency obviously reduces the possibility of financing certain policies through monetary creation or using the exchange rate as an adjustment instrument. But it can also impose a discipline that forces the state to restore balance among spending, revenues, production, and financing. In a country marked by a history of extreme monetary imbalances, this constraint could become a mechanism for rebuilding credibility.

Dollarization, however, is not an automatic solution. It can stabilize certain prices and facilitate transactions, but it creates neither productivity nor infrastructure, employment, nor effective institutions. A dollarized economy can remain deeply dependent on imports, vulnerable to external shocks, and unable to finance its development sustainably if it lacks a sufficiently broad productive base. The danger would therefore be to confuse monetary stability with economic transformation. The dollar can provide a more stable unit of account; it cannot replace industrial policy, tax reform, a high-performing education system, or an investment strategy.

The real question then becomes the relationship between currency and production. A stable currency is useful because it allows economic actors to plan. But planning itself depends on an economy’s ability to produce sufficient quantities of competitive goods and services. Venezuela must therefore avoid a situation in which dollarization reduces inflation without resolving the structural weakness of domestic supply. Monetary stability must be used as a platform for productive reconstruction, not as an end in itself.

This requirement is particularly important for small and medium-sized enterprises. A more stable currency can allow them to set more predictable prices, enter into longer-term contracts, and seek financing in a unit of account recognized internationally. But these businesses will need credit, electricity, roads, internet access, legal security, and a solvent domestic market. Monetary reform must therefore be integrated into a broader strategy for rebuilding the national private sector.

The banking sector will also have to be fundamentally rethought. An economy in which the dollar plays a dominant role requires institutions capable of managing deposits, payments, credit, and risk within a different financial environment. Banking supervision will have to be strengthened, anti-money-laundering mechanisms will have to be credible, and payment infrastructure will have to be modernized. The objective will not simply be to allow citizens to hold dollars, but to build a genuine financial economy capable of mobilizing savings toward investment.

Credit will probably be one of the most difficult challenges. In a monetary-sovereign economy, a central bank can act as lender of last resort and provide liquidity in the national currency. In a largely dollarized economy, this capacity is much more limited. Banks must therefore be more cautious in managing liquidity and assets. The financial system will need to develop reserve mechanisms, liquidity lines, and sufficiently strong international relationships to reduce the risk of banking crises.

This constraint could paradoxically encourage a more disciplined financial culture, but only if institutions are properly designed. Dollarization without strong supervision can shift risks rather than eliminate them. Stability of the unit of account does not guarantee banking stability. An economy can use a stable international currency while still experiencing financial crises caused by excessive credit, poor asset management, or institutional insolvency. Monetary reform must therefore necessarily be accompanied by prudential reform.

Taxation will also become far more important. When the state can no longer rely on monetary issuance to absorb certain imbalances, it must have sufficient and predictable tax revenues. Rebuilding the tax administration then becomes a matter of economic sovereignty. The state must be capable of financing its essential functions through actual revenues rather than inflation or indirect monetary mechanisms. In this context, tax reform should not be conceived merely as a way to raise taxes, but as a reconstruction of the relationship between citizens and the state.

A state that collects revenues effectively must also demonstrate that those resources are used responsibly. Budget transparency therefore becomes indispensable. Citizens are more likely to accept stable taxation if they can understand how resources are collected, where they are spent, and what results they produce. Monetary confidence and fiscal confidence reinforce one another. A stable currency cannot coexist sustainably with a state whose public finances remain opaque and unpredictable.

This transformation could also alter the nature of political power. For decades, control of the currency was a major instrument of Venezuelan economic policy. The ability to issue, devalue, or control foreign exchange could be used to respond to crises, but also to maintain short-term political balances. A dollarized economy sharply reduces this room for maneuver. Governments must rely more heavily on budgets, regulation, infrastructure, productivity, and institutional reform. Economic power does not disappear; it changes form.

This shift could be historically significant. It would force the state to demonstrate its capacity to produce results without relying on monetary creation as a mechanism of compensation. Governments would be judged more heavily on the quality of administration, productivity growth, job creation, the quality of public services, and the ability to attract investment. Currency would gradually cease to be the central instrument around which economic policy is constructed.

This could also help move beyond an old ideological opposition between monetary sovereignty and international integration. The twenty-first century requires a more complex conception of sovereignty. A country can retain a national currency while remaining extremely dependent on international financial markets. Conversely, a country can use a foreign currency while developing strong productive, institutional, and technological autonomy. The question is therefore not simply who prints the banknotes, but who controls the essential economic capabilities.

Contemporary sovereignty increasingly resides in infrastructure. It lies in the capacity to produce energy, control data, secure communications, train engineers, develop technologies, finance enterprises, and guarantee access to strategic supply chains. Currency remains important, but it is only one component of a much broader architecture. This is precisely why Venezuela’s monetary transformation must be analyzed within the larger context of the new global geography of power.

The role of the dollar itself must be understood from this perspective. The dollar is not merely a foreign currency used in transactions. It constitutes a global infrastructure for financing, trade, storing value, and settlement. Its use provides access to a vast financial space, but it also exposes the country to decisions made by financial institutions and U.S. authorities. This dual reality rules out any simplistic interpretation. Dollarization can reduce certain domestic risks while creating or intensifying certain external dependencies.

Venezuela will therefore need to develop a strategy of financial sovereignty compatible with the use of the dollar. Such a strategy could rest on diversifying financial partners, developing strong national institutions, improving export capacity, and building sufficient reserves. Sovereignty would no longer reside in the ability to print a currency, but in the ability to generate the resources necessary to operate within an international monetary system whose fundamental rules Venezuela does not control.

This evolution is particularly important in a world where means of payment are becoming increasingly digital. The currency of the twenty-first century is already no longer limited to banknotes. It moves through electronic systems, digital banks, payment platforms, electronic wallets, and new financial infrastructures. The boundary between currency, payments, and technology is becoming progressively less distinct. A country that wants to be economically sovereign must therefore master not only monetary policy, but also its digital payment infrastructure.

Venezuela could use this transformation to modernize its financial system. Digital payments, mobile banking services, and settlement infrastructure could facilitate financial inclusion among populations that have long remained outside the formal banking system. But this modernization will have to be accompanied by strong safeguards in cybersecurity, data protection, and infrastructure resilience. A digital economy is not necessarily safer than a traditional one; it becomes more effective when it possesses the institutions capable of managing its new risks.

This dimension is particularly important for a country seeking to rebuild its economy after a prolonged period of crisis. Reconstruction should not consist of reproducing the financial infrastructure of the past, but of leapfrogging certain technological stages. Venezuela could develop modern, interoperable, accessible payment systems directly, while using digital technologies to reduce transaction costs and facilitate the activity of small businesses.

The issue of inclusion must nevertheless remain central. Dollarization can benefit households that already have access to dollars and financial systems while leaving those with low or irregular incomes at greater disadvantage. Responsible public policy must therefore ensure that monetary stability does not create a new social divide between those holding international financial assets and those living primarily on local incomes. Stability must be accompanied by policies that raise real incomes through productivity and employment.

This is where currency directly intersects with the social question. A society cannot live sustainably on monetary stability if the majority of its population remains poor. Dollarization must therefore be regarded as a potential condition for stabilization, not as a social policy. Genuine improvements in living standards will come from productivity growth, formal employment, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and investment.

Another risk would be the creation of a two-speed economy, in which certain modern activities operate in dollars and are connected to international markets while a significant portion of the population remains trapped in a low-productivity informal economy. Monetary modernization will therefore succeed only if it accompanies the gradual formalization of the economy. Businesses must be able to enter the tax and banking system without being overwhelmed by administrative complexity or taxation.

Such formalization could itself broaden the tax base and strengthen the state. The more businesses and workers participate in the formal economy, the more the state can finance its services without excessive dependence on energy rents. Dollarization and oil-sector reconstruction could therefore converge toward the same objective: creating an economic system in which public revenues increasingly derive from productive activity rather than monetary creation or the extraction of natural resources alone.

Venezuela would then face a particularly interesting historical paradox. A decision that could be presented as the abandonment of a traditional symbol of sovereignty could, if integrated into a coherent strategy, become the starting point for a more modern conception of sovereignty. The country could relinquish part of its monetary autonomy in order to rebuild other forms of autonomy: productive, energy, technological, food, financial, and institutional.

This possibility should nevertheless not be romanticized. Dollarization imposes real constraints. It reduces monetary room for maneuver, makes exchange-rate adjustment more difficult, and increases the importance of real competitiveness. Wages, prices, and productivity must therefore evolve in an environment in which devaluation can no longer serve as an automatic adjustment mechanism. For a poorly diversified economy, this constraint can be painful. It forces the country precisely to address the structural causes of weak competitiveness rather than their monetary symptoms.

Economic policy will therefore have to shift its center of gravity. Instead of seeking primarily to manipulate the currency, it will have to act on productivity, infrastructure, training, competition, financing, innovation, and institutional quality. This evolution may be politically difficult because structural reforms rarely produce results as quickly as monetary measures. But it is precisely what could allow Venezuela to build more sustainable growth.

The relationship between dollarization and oil then becomes particularly strategic. Oil revenues can provide the country with the dollars necessary to finance imports, investment, and reserves. But if those revenues decline without the productive economy having been sufficiently diversified, dollarization could become a severe constraint. The country must therefore use the favorable energy period to develop sectors capable of generating their own external revenues. Oil must finance Venezuela’s ability to earn dollars through means other than oil.

This idea probably summarizes the entire process. Monetary stability can only be sustainable if it rests on an economy capable of producing, exporting, and innovating. Oil reconstruction will only be sustainable if it finances diversification. Diversification will only be sustainable if it rests on credible institutions. And institutions can only remain credible if they are supported by a society that gradually regains confidence in the future.

Currency thus appears less as the beginning of the transformation than as its revealer. The real change does not lie in the banknote used in a daily transaction. It lies in the transformation of the relationship between the state and wealth creation. For much of the previous century, Venezuelan economic policy was organized around control of rents and currency. The twenty-first century could impose a different architecture, organized around productivity, human capital, technology, networks, and international integration.

If this transformation succeeds, dollarization could ultimately be understood in retrospect not as the simple disappearance of Venezuelan monetary sovereignty, but as one stage in a broader transformation of national sovereignty. Venezuela might no longer control its monetary instrument in the same way, but it could gradually gain greater control over what actually determines its ability to prosper: its energy, infrastructure, skills, data, enterprises, institutions, and integration into global value chains.

The decisive question would therefore no longer be: What currency should Venezuela possess? It would become far more demanding: What capabilities must Venezuela build so that its prosperity no longer depends on a single currency, a single resource, or a single external power? It is within this question that the monetary issue ultimately meets the civilizational question of the twenty-first century.

THE GREAT CHALLENGE OF THE 21ST CENTURY: MOVING FROM STABILIZATION TO PRODUCTIVE TRANSFORMATION

After monetary stabilization, geopolitical realignment, and the gradual reopening of energy prospects, Venezuela will face a far more demanding test: transforming a possible macroeconomic improvement into sustainable development. This transition is far from automatic. International experience shows that a country can emerge from a profound monetary crisis without succeeding in building a sufficiently diversified productive economy to sustain employment, social mobility, and capital accumulation over the long term. Stabilization can create a window of opportunity; it does not guarantee that this window will be used. For Venezuela, the fundamental question will therefore be whether potential gains in stability can be converted into productive investment, human capital, modern infrastructure, and new technological capabilities. The true historical turning point will not occur when prices simply stop rising rapidly, but when society begins once again to believe that working, investing, building a business, studying, and producing in the country can offer a reasonable perspective over several years.

This transformation must first break with a particularly dangerous illusion: the belief that the return of oil revenues would be sufficient to finance national renewal. Oil can provide the initial resources for reconstruction, but it cannot constitute its permanent architecture. Venezuela possesses exceptional energy wealth; its historical problem has never been a lack of resources, but rather the difficulty of transforming that wealth into an economic system sufficiently complex to survive oil cycles. The next phase must therefore be built around a simple principle: use resource rents to reduce dependence on resource rents. Energy revenues should finance infrastructure, education, industrial modernization, agriculture, digital services, research, and the development of companies capable of generating external revenues independent of oil.

Productive reconstruction must also take into account a reality that is often neglected in macroeconomic debates: a significant portion of Venezuela’s human capital has been dispersed through years of crisis and migration. Engineers, physicians, technicians, entrepreneurs, teachers, researchers, and skilled professionals now live in different countries. This diaspora represents both a loss and a potential asset. It is a loss when the country can no longer directly benefit from the skills it has cultivated; it becomes an asset when a national policy succeeds in transforming diaspora networks into channels for investment, skills transfer, scientific cooperation, and professional return. Economic reconstruction must therefore be conceived as a process that extends beyond Venezuela’s territorial borders.

Migration thus becomes a strategic economic issue. The return of part of the diaspora cannot be achieved through patriotic appeals alone. Highly skilled people return when professional, institutional, security, and economic conditions make such a decision credible. Venezuela must therefore create an environment in which returning becomes a rational decision as well as an emotional one. Programs for the recognition of qualifications, business creation, capital transfers, scientific research, and professional mobility could become essential instruments of such a policy. The country should not merely ask its diaspora to return; it should give its members concrete reasons to participate in reconstruction, even when permanent return is not yet possible.

Productive transformation will simultaneously require a new relationship between the state and the private sector. During periods of crisis and political polarization, private enterprise can be portrayed either as an ideological adversary or, conversely, as the universal solution to economic problems. Neither position is sufficient. A modern economy needs a state capable of establishing rules, ensuring competition, investing in infrastructure, and correcting certain market failures, but it also needs companies capable of innovating, hiring, exporting, and taking risks. The real challenge is therefore to build a functional relationship between public authority and private initiative in which neither seeks to replace the other.

This relationship will need to be particularly clear in strategic sectors. Energy, telecommunications, critical infrastructure, data, finance, and certain natural resources may justify a significant public presence, but such a presence should not necessarily mean permanent monopoly. International experience shows that a state can retain strategic interests while allowing multiple actors to participate in investment and production. The priority should be performance, infrastructure security, and investment capacity rather than ownership as an abstract principle.

The oil industry itself will have to be reinvented. Rebuilding production cannot simply mean bringing inherited facilities back into operation. It must incorporate new environmental requirements, digital technologies, operational efficiency, industrial safety, and the changing structure of global demand. Oil will remain important for many years to come, but the global energy market is changing. Venezuela must therefore avoid treating the energy transition as a threat to be resisted. It can instead be used as an incentive to modernize the energy sector, reduce costs, improve performance, and progressively invest in new sources of revenue.

The real energy strategy could therefore rest on three simultaneous horizons. The first would be to restore and optimize existing oil and gas capacities. The second would aim to develop electricity infrastructure and renewable energy in order to improve domestic energy security. The third would seek to use the country’s energy experience to develop capabilities in engineering, industrial services, maintenance, data, and environmental technologies. The energy sector would then become not only a source of revenue, but also an industrial school.

The same logic should apply to agriculture. Excessive dependence on food imports weakens economic sovereignty when a country experiences a foreign-exchange crisis. Venezuela possesses land, water, varied climatic conditions, and significant agricultural potential, but transforming that potential into competitiveness requires investment in rural infrastructure, irrigation, seeds, cold chains, logistics, credit, and food processing. The objective should not be unrealistic autarky, but the ability to create more value domestically and develop agricultural exports when conditions are favorable.

This strategy could also create a new internal economic geography. The excessive concentration of activity in a few major urban centers and around certain sectors should gradually be corrected through the development of specialized regional hubs. Regions could be encouraged to develop their own comparative advantages in agriculture, energy, tourism, light industry, logistics, digital services, or food processing. A more decentralized economy would be not only more inclusive but also more resilient in the face of crises.

Infrastructure will be decisive. Roads, ports, airports, electricity networks, access to water, and telecommunications are the invisible foundations of competitiveness. A company cannot remain competitive if its goods take too long to reach a port; a farmer cannot access markets if rural roads are impassable; a digital company cannot expand if electricity and connectivity are unstable. Infrastructure investment must therefore be regarded as productive investment rather than merely public expenditure.

Venezuela must nevertheless avoid the trap of prestigious mega-projects whose economic returns have not been demonstrated. During a reconstruction period, every available dollar carries a high opportunity cost. Projects must therefore be evaluated according to their contribution to productivity, employment, regional integration, and export capacity. The era of infrastructure conceived primarily as political symbols should give way to a culture of evaluation, maintenance, and economic returns.

Digital modernization offers a particularly important opportunity. Unlike certain heavy infrastructure projects, many digital services can be developed relatively quickly and at comparatively low cost. The digitization of tax administration, business registries, customs procedures, social services, and public payments could reduce costs, improve transparency, and limit certain forms of corruption. Digital technology does not replace institutions; it can, however, make good institutions more effective and make poor practices more difficult to conceal.

This transformation must also incorporate artificial intelligence, but realistically. Venezuela is unlikely to compete immediately with states investing tens of billions of dollars in computing infrastructure and foundational models. It can, however, become an advanced user and specialized developer of AI applications adapted to its own needs. Precision agriculture, industrial maintenance, electricity-grid management, logistics optimization, medicine, education, and public services are all areas in which artificial intelligence could generate substantial gains without requiring the construction of a technological ecosystem comparable to that of the major powers.

The real gap to avoid is therefore not only a gap in the production of cutting-edge technologies, but a gap in their adoption. A country that uses existing technologies effectively can sometimes advance faster than a country seeking to reproduce the full capabilities of global leaders. Venezuela must therefore develop a policy of technological absorption. Universities, companies, government agencies, and training centers must learn to integrate new tools rapidly into their practices.

This strategy requires a profound reform of education. Economic reconstruction cannot sustainably depend on a workforce trained according to the industrial needs of the previous century. Digital, statistical, scientific, linguistic, and entrepreneurial skills must occupy a more prominent place. But modernization does not mean abandoning fundamental disciplines. An artificial-intelligence economy needs mathematics, science, reading, critical reasoning, engineering, and broad general knowledge. Technology does not replace human capital; it increases the value of well-trained human capital.

Universities must also recover a central role in the national strategy. They should no longer be regarded solely as places for transmitting knowledge, but as development infrastructure. Universities can train engineers, create companies, participate in energy research, develop agricultural solutions, work on public health, and build international partnerships. Venezuela will need to reconnect higher education with its real economy.

Productive reconstruction ultimately requires a profound rebuilding of trust. Entrepreneurs invest when they believe that rules will remain relatively stable. Families save when they believe their savings will retain their value. Young people remain in a country when they believe their skills will have a future there. Foreign investors commit when they believe their contracts will be protected. Trust is therefore economic infrastructure, just as electricity and roads are. It cannot be decreed; it is built gradually through the consistency of public decisions.

Venezuela could then enter a phase in which monetary stability ceases to be the primary objective and becomes instead the foundation for a broader transformation. From this perspective, the dollar would be neither a symbol of foreign victory nor one of national defeat. It would be an instrument used within a broader reconstruction strategy. Success would depend on what the country builds around that instrument.

The transition from stabilization to productive transformation will therefore be the true test of Venezuela’s next historical period. If Venezuela succeeds in converting stability into investment, investment into productivity, productivity into jobs, and jobs into social mobility, the monetary crisis could gradually become a chapter of the past. If, on the other hand, stabilization merely facilitates consumption and imports without rebuilding production, the country risks experiencing a superficial stability resting on renewed external dependence. Between these two trajectories lies the essential question of Venezuela’s economic future.

A NEW GENERATION OF SOVEREIGNTY: TECHNOLOGY, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DATA, AND HUMAN CAPITAL

Venezuela’s transformation cannot be sustainable if it remains confined within the traditional categories of economic policy. The 21st century is fundamentally changing the nature of power itself. States are no longer assessed solely according to the size of their territory, the depth of their natural-resource reserves, or the capacity of their armed forces. Their power also depends on their ability to produce and use knowledge, control digital infrastructure, protect data, train scientific capabilities, and rapidly integrate new technologies. This evolution is creating a new global hierarchy in which human capital is gradually becoming as strategic as financial capital and in which artificial intelligence could become one of the fundamental infrastructures of national competitiveness.

For Venezuela, this transition represents both a threat and an opportunity. The threat is clear: a country already weakened by years of crisis could accumulate a new technological deficit while advanced economies accelerate their investments in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, biotechnology, data infrastructure, and automation. The opportunity is equally real: unlike certain forms of industrial infrastructure that require decades to build, digital capabilities can spread rapidly when education, connectivity, and an entrepreneurial environment are in place. Venezuela therefore still has the possibility of reducing part of its technological gap through a strategy of accelerated learning.

This strategy must begin with a clear-eyed recognition of the global technological divide. Differences between countries are no longer limited to per-capita income or industrial capacity. They increasingly concern computing power, access to data, cloud infrastructure, talent availability, research systems, telecommunications networks, semiconductors, and the ability to transform research into companies. Countries that control these infrastructures acquire a cumulative advantage: they attract the best talent, attract capital, develop the most innovative companies, and thereby reinforce their lead. The risk for countries of the Global South is therefore to remain locked into the position of consumers of technologies designed elsewhere.

Venezuela cannot reverse this global architecture on its own, but it can avoid becoming a merely passive consumer. It will need to identify areas in which its natural resources, human capital, geography, and domestic needs can serve as platforms for innovation. Energy is one such area. Artificial intelligence can be used to optimize oil production, anticipate maintenance requirements, improve electricity grids, reduce losses, and optimize logistics chains. Agriculture offers another platform, particularly through soil analysis, water management, yield forecasting, and logistics. Health, education, and public administration are also areas in which AI can produce significant gains.

This approach would make it possible to move from a spectacular conception of artificial intelligence to a productive one. The objective is not to immediately create a global language model or build a massive data center comparable to those of the major powers. It is to use technology to solve real problems. A country that significantly reduces electricity-grid losses through predictive analysis, improves agricultural productivity through data, or accelerates public administration through automation can create considerable value without becoming a global AI power.

This philosophy can be summarized by a simple idea: Venezuela should seek less to possess all technology than to master the technologies that determine its own sovereignty. This distinction is essential. Absolute technological sovereignty is practically impossible for most states. Even major powers depend on international supply chains for certain components. Realistic sovereignty instead consists of understanding one’s dependencies, diversifying them, securing critical infrastructure, and developing the skills necessary to ensure that the country is never completely incapable of acting without an external provider.

Data, in this context, constitute a strategic resource. A modern economy generates immense quantities of data through transactions, transportation, energy, agriculture, health, and public services. When properly structured and protected, such data can significantly improve decision-making. But when they are dispersed, poorly secured, or transferred without adequate control, they become a source of dependency. Venezuela will therefore need to develop a genuine national data policy capable of reconciling innovation, privacy protection, security, and the public interest.

Cybersecurity will become inseparable from this policy. The more an economy depends on digital systems, the more vulnerable it becomes to attacks targeting banks, electricity networks, telecommunications, hospitals, ports, and government institutions. National security can therefore no longer be conceived solely in military terms. A cyberattack against critical energy infrastructure can produce economic and social consequences comparable to those of a major physical crisis. The country will need to train specialists, develop incident-response centers, and integrate cybersecurity into the design of new infrastructure from the outset.

Digital modernization must also be accompanied by a policy of infrastructure sovereignty. Complete dependence on foreign companies for critical digital services can create strategic vulnerability. Yet seeking to nationalize everything would be costly and often inefficient. A more realistic policy would be to diversify providers, maintain certain essential domestic capabilities, and establish strict rules concerning sensitive data and critical infrastructure. Digital sovereignty should be understood as intelligent management of dependencies rather than technological isolation.

Education consequently becomes the core of this new sovereignty. Venezuela must regard scientific and technological education as a strategic investment comparable to energy infrastructure. School curricula will need to strengthen mathematics, science, programming, digital literacy, and critical thinking. Universities will need to expand fields related to engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, energy, and biotechnology. Vocational training must enable workers to retrain as automation transforms employment.

The generational dimension is fundamental here. Young Venezuelans entering the labor market in the coming years will not have the same expectations as previous generations. They have grown up with smartphones, digital platforms, social networks, and the global circulation of information. They will naturally compare domestic opportunities with those they observe abroad. If Venezuela does not create modern professional environments, the talent drain could continue even after economic conditions improve.

The country will therefore need to create a new proposition for its youth. This proposition cannot be based solely on patriotism or historical memory. It must rest on concrete opportunities: access to quality education, digital connectivity, project financing, professional mobility, scientific research, entrepreneurship, and participation in international networks. Twenty-first-century patriotism could thus be less a demand for sacrifice than an ability to offer young people credible reasons to build their future in their own country.

This transformation could also alter the relationship between the state and citizens. A well-designed digital administration can reduce waiting times, simplify procedures, limit intermediaries, and make certain public expenditures more transparent. Social services can be better targeted through data. Education systems can monitor students’ needs. Infrastructure can be monitored in real time. Digital technology can therefore bring the state closer to citizens, provided that it does not become an instrument of disproportionate surveillance.

Trust will consequently be central. Citizens will accept the use of their data if institutions demonstrate that they protect them and use them to improve public services. They will reject it if digitization becomes synonymous with opacity, control, or uncontrolled commercial exploitation. Venezuela must therefore establish a clear legal framework before building a large-scale digital state. Technology must not move faster than the law.

The same caution should apply to artificial intelligence. Automated systems can improve administrative efficiency, but they can also reproduce errors, amplify biases, or make decisions that are difficult to challenge. Venezuela will need to develop a culture of AI governance based on human responsibility, transparency, and the right to appeal. A modern administration should not replace human judgment with an algorithm without meaningful mechanisms of oversight.

Technology must also be placed at the service of small-business productivity. Large companies can generally invest in software, consultants, and digital infrastructure. Small businesses, which represent an essential share of employment, often have fewer resources. Public or private platforms could facilitate their access to digital accounting, electronic payments, e-commerce, training, and artificial-intelligence tools. Digital transformation must not become a new source of inequality among businesses.

Venezuela also possesses an opportunity in digital services for external markets. An educated population, a large diaspora, and linguistic capabilities could support activities in software development, business services, design, data analysis, digital finance, and certain specialized services. This services economy could generate external revenues without requiring the same physical infrastructure as heavy industry. It could also provide young professionals with an additional reason to remain in the country.

The diaspora could play a decisive role in this transition. Venezuelan professionals working in technology sectors in Miami, Madrid, Bogotá, Santiago, Mexico City, or elsewhere can form networks for skills transfer, investment, and mentoring. National policy should regard this diaspora not as a lost population, but as a potential extension of national human capital. Physical borders become less important when part of work, research, and entrepreneurship can be organized remotely.

This international dimension is essential because Venezuela must not build its digital transformation in isolation. University partnerships, joint research programs, international incubators, and foreign investment can accelerate learning. India, South Korea, the United States, Europe, Canada, Brazil, and several other countries possess capabilities that could be mobilized around specific projects. Technological diplomacy could therefore complement traditional economic diplomacy.

The challenge, however, goes beyond technology. The real objective is to build a society capable of learning continuously. In a world where knowledge is rapidly renewed, the most important skill is no longer simply what someone learns at twenty. It is the ability to continue learning at thirty, forty, fifty, and beyond. Lifelong training policies must therefore become a normal component of economic life. Workers must be able to acquire new skills without having to leave employment altogether.

This requirement leads to a deeper transformation of the social contract. The state cannot guarantee everyone the same job throughout an entire professional life in an economy subject to automation and technological change. It must instead guarantee conditions that allow citizens to redirect their careers as sectors evolve. Education, social protection, access to training, and professional mobility therefore become instruments of economic resilience.

Venezuela could benefit from this situation if it avoids viewing artificial intelligence solely as a threat to employment. Automation will eliminate certain tasks, but it can also create new activities and increase productivity. The central issue will be the transition. Workers must be prepared for this transformation before it occurs. Public policies will therefore need to identify the occupations most exposed and develop appropriate retraining programs.

This issue is particularly important for young people. An economy offering mainly precarious and low-productivity jobs naturally pushes new generations toward emigration. An economy capable of offering careers in engineering, technology, finance, modern industry, health, and advanced services can gradually reverse this dynamic. Technological development thus also becomes a demographic policy.

Venezuela’s technological sovereignty will therefore depend less on the possession of a particular number of machines than on the ability of its population to understand and use technology. A country endowed with considerable natural resources but lacking scientific capabilities will remain dependent. A country with a highly skilled population can, by contrast, gradually transform limited resources into significant economic advantages. Human capital thus becomes the form of sovereignty that is most difficult to confiscate.

This conclusion requires a reassessment of the very notion of national power. In the 20th century, a state could accumulate tanks, aircraft, ships, oil, and financial reserves to increase its power. In the 21st century, it must also accumulate engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, developers, physicians, scientists, and teachers. A nation whose best talent continually leaves the country loses part of its strategic capacity, even if its natural resources remain intact.

Venezuela’s challenge will therefore be to transform its dispersed human capital into connected human capital. Digital technologies make this transformation more accessible than ever. A university in Caracas can collaborate with a laboratory in Madrid. A company in Maracaibo can work with an engineer in Houston. A researcher in Mérida can participate in an international project. An entrepreneur in Valencia can sell a digital service to a client in North America. Geography has not disappeared, but it is now traversed by networks.

This new architecture offers Venezuela a historic possibility: to transform the constraints created by migration into resources for globalization. The diaspora can become an economic, scientific, and cultural network connecting the country to the world’s major centers. But this will require national institutions credible enough to organize such a relationship.

Technological reconstruction must ultimately be integrated into a broader conception of human development. The objective of AI should not be to create a society in which machines become more capable than people, but an economy in which technology expands human possibilities. Education, health, security, employment, and dignity must remain the ultimate criteria of success. A technology that increases GDP while destroying social trust or aggravating inequality does not necessarily constitute progress.

Venezuela can therefore use the digital revolution not only to rebuild its economy but also to reshape its relationship with the world. Currency can provide the stability necessary for transactions; energy can provide resources; the diaspora can provide networks; universities can provide skills; businesses can provide innovation; and the state can provide the institutional framework. Only by combining these elements can 21st-century sovereignty become a reality.

FROM THE END OF A CYCLE TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW ERA: VENEZUELA FACING A HISTORIC CHOICE

Venezuela’s economic history is not simply facing a new chapter. It may be facing the need to change books altogether. The crisis of the bolivar, the expansion of dollarization, the transformation of the oil economy, the evolution of relations with Washington, the reshaping of international partnerships, the emergence of new technological powers, and the transformation of Venezuelan generations are converging toward the same reality: the categories that organized much of the political debate of the 20th century are no longer sufficient to explain the choices of the 21st. This does not mean that the history of the previous century should be erased. It means that it must be understood for what it is: a legacy, not an intellectual prison.

The possible recognition or official consolidation of a largely dollarized economy could therefore acquire a symbolic significance extending far beyond monetary policy. It could be interpreted as institutional recognition of a transformation that has already taken place within society. When a population gradually adopts another unit of account because it no longer trusts its national currency, the historical change has already begun. Political decisions come after social transformation. In this sense, a possible monetary decision would not necessarily create a new reality; it could simply recognize a reality that has emerged through economic behavior.

This distinction makes it possible to avoid two symmetrical errors. The first would be to celebrate dollarization as a miracle solution. The second would be to condemn it simply because it challenges a traditional conception of sovereignty. Both interpretations would be too simplistic. Dollarization can contribute to stabilizing an economy deeply marked by inflation, but it can also create new constraints. It can facilitate trade and restore part of confidence, but it cannot replace production, investment, or institutions. Its significance will therefore depend on the national project within which it is integrated.

This is where the most important historical question probably lies. Venezuela can view monetary transformation as a humiliation to be corrected or as a starting point to be used. The first approach would seek to restore the past. The second would seek to build a different future. The first would be essentially reactive. The second would be strategic. Yet the 21st century increasingly rewards states capable of anticipating transformations rather than endlessly defending architectures that are disappearing.

The real exhaustion therefore concerns less a particular ideology than a way of thinking about power. The 20th century produced conceptions of the world based on blocs, ideological borders, monetary sovereignty, the Cold War, large industrial bureaucracies, and relatively predictable relations of power among states. The 21st century operates differently. Technology companies can exercise global influence without possessing territory. Financial platforms can move capital within seconds. Data cross borders. Production chains are distributed across several continents. Societies can use a currency different from that of their state. Individuals can work for companies located thousands of miles away. Artificial intelligence can generate value without respecting the traditional boundaries of industrial production.

Power is therefore becoming more diffuse and interconnected. States remain indispensable, but they are no longer the only actors capable of producing influence. Companies, digital platforms, universities, investment funds, scientific networks, diasporas, and even certain technological communities participate in shaping new power relations. A state that ignores these actors risks overestimating its formal power and underestimating the forces that are actually transforming its economy.

This transformation is also generational. The generations reaching adulthood today have a different relationship with territory, currency, and information. They can follow global economic events in real time, compare prices across countries, use international payment systems, study remotely, and work for organizations that are not physically present in their city. Their perception of sovereignty is necessarily different from that of generations who experienced a world in which national currency, national television, national companies, and physical borders structured economic life much more strongly.

Venezuela cannot rebuild its future by asking these generations to think like those who preceded them. It must instead integrate their experience into its new national strategy. Young people should not be regarded solely as a social category to be protected. They should be considered a force for transformation. Young Venezuelans are natural users of new technologies and the future entrepreneurs, engineers, researchers, teachers, and leaders of the country. A national policy offering them only traditional jobs and aging institutions risks losing them.

This question directly intersects with the diaspora. A significant portion of Venezuela’s 21st-century experience now exists outside the national territory. This reality cannot be reversed by political decision. It must be transformed into an advantage. Venezuela could become one of the few countries possessing a global network of professionals sharing a common economic and social culture while living in several major centers of the world economy. An intelligent policy could transform this dispersion into a network of skills, investment, innovation, and market access.

The success of such a policy will nevertheless depend on the quality of national institutions. The diaspora can invest in a country if it considers its rules predictable. It can transfer skills if it believes its knowledge will be valued. It can return if it considers the professional environment sufficiently stable. The relationship with the diaspora therefore cannot be separated from the reconstruction of the rule of law.

Institutional reform thus becomes the hidden core of Venezuela’s entire transformation. Currency, oil, technology, and geopolitics can create opportunities, but only credible institutions can turn those opportunities into sustainable results. A respected contract can sometimes be worth more than a spectacular tax incentive. An efficient administration can generate more growth than a gigantic but poorly executed public program. A predictable justice system can attract more investment than a diplomatic campaign. The power of a modern state is also measured by the confidence it inspires.

That confidence must be built at several levels. Citizens must believe that their savings are protected and their rights respected. Companies must believe that economic rules will not change arbitrarily. Foreign investors must believe that contracts will be enforceable. International partners must believe that diplomatic and commercial commitments will be honored. Without such confidence, monetary stabilization will remain fragile and productive reconstruction incomplete.

The question of oil must be integrated into this institutional reconstruction. The energy industry cannot be sustainably modernized if it remains subject to regulatory uncertainty, lack of transparency, or contractual instability. The capital required to restore oil infrastructure is considerable. It will require clear rules, professional governance, and credible oversight mechanisms. Venezuela must therefore choose between using oil to finance a new institutional architecture or reproducing the mechanisms that contributed to its exhaustion.

The second option would be particularly dangerous. A new increase in oil revenues could temporarily improve economic indicators while postponing structural reforms. The history of rentier economies shows that periods of abundance can sometimes be more dangerous than periods of scarcity when they create the illusion that fundamental problems have disappeared. Venezuela must therefore use any improvement in energy revenues to build capabilities that will survive the next downturn in prices.

The creation of stabilization funds, intergenerational savings mechanisms, and credible fiscal rules could play an important role. The objective would be to transform part of exceptional revenues into durable assets. Oil revenues should be capable of financing infrastructure, training, and investments that generate future income. An economy that consumes all of its resource rent today does not build tomorrow’s sovereignty.

This logic leads to a different conception of the public budget. The budget should no longer be merely an instrument of immediate redistribution, but an instrument of national accumulation. Spending on education, health, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure should be evaluated according to its contribution to future productive capacity. This does not mean sacrificing present social needs in the name of hypothetical growth. It means recognizing that sustainable social protection itself depends on an economy capable of generating sufficient wealth.

Social reconstruction must therefore accompany productive reconstruction. A society emerging from a prolonged crisis cannot ask all citizens simply to wait for the benefits of future growth. The most vulnerable populations require immediate protection. But that protection must be designed in a way that facilitates economic reintegration rather than trapping individuals in permanent dependency. The most effective social policies will be those that combine support, training, health care, education, and access to employment.

The same principle should guide the reconstruction of the middle class. A stable middle class is one of the strongest indicators of an economy capable of generating social mobility. It enables families to invest in education, purchase homes, create businesses, and participate in economic life. Venezuela will therefore need to rebuild the conditions under which a productive middle class can develop. Monetary stability can contribute to this reconstruction by allowing households to plan, but it must be accompanied by real growth in incomes.

The currency question then assumes its proper place within the overall architecture. It is neither the only problem nor the only solution. It is an infrastructure of trust. A stable currency allows citizens to think about tomorrow. An unstable currency forces them to think only about today. When households are compelled to immediately convert their income into goods, foreign currency, or real assets to avoid losses in value, the economy loses part of its capacity for saving and investment. Restoring a credible unit of account can therefore have profound effects on economic psychology.

But an economy cannot live indefinitely on imported confidence. If the dollar provides monetary stability, Venezuela will need to gradually build institutional stability strong enough to ensure that such stability does not depend solely on a foreign currency. The real objective should therefore not be to determine whether the country will one day recover a national currency, but whether it will recover institutions capable of making any currency used on its territory credible.

This distinction may seem abstract, but it is fundamental. A strong national currency is not created by decree. It is the result of a productive economy, a credible central bank, fiscal discipline, a sound financial system, and social confidence accumulated over many years. If Venezuela wishes one day to rebuild a fully credible national currency, it must first rebuild these foundations. The monetary debate should therefore not precede the debate on institutions; it should emerge from it.

The transformation of the international system makes this question even more urgent. The world is becoming more fragmented without becoming less interdependent. The United States uses its financial and commercial power to defend its interests. China is developing its own technological and industrial capabilities. India is asserting growing strategic autonomy. Europe is seeking to secure its supply chains. Russia retains significant military and energy capabilities despite the costs of war. Gulf countries are investing heavily to diversify their economies. Brazil is seeking to strengthen its regional autonomy. Countries of the Global South want greater room for maneuver. In this environment, no middle-sized country can reasonably rely on a single alliance.

Venezuela will therefore need to develop a diplomacy of multiplicity. This means being able to engage with Washington without abandoning other partnerships, work with Beijing without becoming dependent on Beijing, maintain relations with Moscow without subordinating its strategy to Moscow, deepen ties with India and South Korea, strengthen relations with Brazil and the Caribbean, and participate in Global South mechanisms without treating those mechanisms as automatic substitutes for the existing international system.

Such diplomacy should not be based on the permanent search for an external enemy. A modern foreign policy should first seek common interests. Venezuela can negotiate with one country on energy, with another on infrastructure, with a third on education, and with a fourth on technology. Political differences will not disappear, but they do not have to prevent all forms of cooperation. Pragmatism does not mean abandoning principles; it means distinguishing essential principles from the instruments necessary to defend them.

This new conception of sovereignty would also make it possible to move beyond some of the ideological oppositions inherited from the previous century. Being sovereign does not necessarily mean being isolated. Being open does not necessarily mean being dependent. Using the dollar does not necessarily mean abandoning national identity. Working with the United States does not necessarily mean surrendering all autonomy. Cooperating with China does not mean adopting its political model. Participating in BRICS does not mean breaking with Western institutions. The 21st century precisely requires the ability to maintain multiple relationships simultaneously.

This strategic maturity could become one of the most important changes of Venezuela’s new era. The country should no longer seek to prove its sovereignty through permanent confrontation. It should demonstrate sovereignty through its ability to negotiate, choose, produce, and withstand shocks. A genuinely sovereign nation is not one that rejects all interdependence; it is one that can enter interdependence without losing its capacity for decision.

The question of artificial intelligence reinforces this requirement. Countries that master critical technologies will increasingly possess the ability to influence the economies of others. Venezuela must therefore integrate technology into its definition of national security. Energy, telecommunications, data, digital infrastructure, financial systems, and scientific capabilities must be regarded as strategic assets. Technological backwardness will not merely be a competitiveness problem; it could become a sovereignty problem.

The same logic applies to food and energy security. A country that depends excessively on essential imports can be vulnerable even when it possesses substantial financial reserves. Contemporary sovereignty rests on the capacity to maintain essential societal functions when international supply chains are disrupted. This does not mean autarky; it means resilience. Supplier diversification, strategic domestic production, and security reserves therefore become components of economic policy.

Resilience should also become a central principle of national planning. Future crises will not necessarily resemble those of the past. They may result from energy shocks, climate disasters, cyberattacks, pandemics, trade tensions, financial crises, or logistical disruptions. Venezuela must therefore build institutions capable of functioning under uncertainty. Strategic planning is no longer about predicting the future exactly; it is about preparing for several possible futures.

This philosophy naturally leads to a new conception of development. Development in the 21st century can no longer be measured solely by GDP growth. It must include institutional quality, productivity, education, health, connectivity, innovation, resilience, and citizens’ ability to choose their own future. An economy can grow rapidly while remaining fragile if its growth depends on a single commodity or a single market. Conversely, a more modest economy can become sustainable if it possesses a diversified productive base and strong institutions.

Venezuela therefore faces a historic choice that extends far beyond the question of the bolivar. It can attempt to restore the old model in a slightly different form, or it can use the current crisis to build an economy adapted to the realities of the new century. The first path is politically more familiar but economically riskier. The second requires more reform, patience, and discipline, but offers the possibility of a genuine break with historical cycles of dependence.

A possible monetary decision could then be understood as a symbol of transition: the transition from sovereignty defined primarily by instruments to sovereignty defined by capabilities; from an economy based primarily on resource rents to one seeking to develop multiple sources of productivity; from confrontational diplomacy to a diplomacy of multiple partnerships; from an industrial policy centered on physical infrastructure to one that also integrates data, skills, and artificial intelligence; and from a territorial conception of power to a networked conception of power.

This transition will be neither rapid nor linear. Political resistance will emerge. Established interests will seek to preserve their advantages. Social tensions may increase during certain phases of reform. External markets will remain unpredictable. Oil will continue to expose the country to international cycles. Rivalries among major powers will create new uncertainties. The digital transition will also produce winners and losers. No serious plan can claim to eliminate these risks.

The real question will therefore be institutional capacity to manage these contradictions. Venezuela will have to learn how to reform without destroying, open without dissolving, protect without freezing, attract capital without abandoning national interests, use technology without becoming technologically dependent, and rebuild the state without reproducing the bureaucratic excesses of the past. This capacity for intelligent compromise could become one of the most valuable resources of the new era.

It will also be necessary to accept that national reconstruction is a generational undertaking. No government will be able to repair within a few years all the consequences accumulated over several decades. Infrastructure can be rebuilt relatively quickly; trust, skills, and institutions take much longer. The strategy must therefore extend beyond electoral cycles. A national vision spanning fifteen or twenty years will be necessary to prevent every political transition from completely overturning previous strategic directions.

Such continuity does not mean immobility. It means that certain priorities should be regarded as national rather than partisan. Education, critical infrastructure, monetary stability, energy security, productive diversification, digital transformation, and the rule of law should transcend political alternation. Governments may disagree on methods; they should not necessarily destroy the foundations built by their predecessors.

Venezuela also possesses a particular symbolic place in Latin American history. It was long one of the region’s wealthiest countries in terms of energy resources and later became one of the most visible examples of the collapse of an economic model dependent on resource rents. Its reconstruction could therefore become a regional laboratory. If the country succeeds in transforming energy wealth into productive diversification, monetary crisis into stability, its diaspora into an economic network, natural resources into human capital, and geopolitical repositioning into a strategy of multiple partnerships, it could demonstrate that a rentier economy can build a new trajectory without abandoning its identity.

The final outcome, however, will not depend on an ideological formula. It will depend on Venezuela’s ability to look lucidly at its history while accepting the need to think beyond it. Sovereignty must no longer be confused with isolation. Modernity must not be confused with the abandonment of traditions. Globalization must not be confused with dependence. Technology must not be confused with automatic progress. Dollarization must not be confused with the disappearance of the nation. Every instrument must be judged according to its contribution to a higher objective: increasing society’s real capacity to determine its own future.

Venezuela is therefore entering a period in which the fundamental question may no longer be which global power it will choose to follow, but what national capabilities it will choose to build. In a world where Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow, Brussels, Seoul, Brasília, and the Gulf powers are pursuing different strategies, the best Venezuelan response will probably not be permanent alignment. It will be the construction of an economy productive enough, a society educated enough, institutions credible enough, and diplomacy flexible enough to engage with all without belonging entirely to any one of them.

It is from this perspective that possible monetary transformation acquires its true historical significance. It could mark not the end of Venezuelan sovereignty, but the end of a particular definition of sovereignty: a definition inherited from a century in which controlling one’s currency, territory, and borders represented the essence of national autonomy. The new century adds other dimensions: control over skills, data, infrastructure, supply chains, energy capacity, financial resilience, technology, and above all the ability to create value.

The true historical rupture would therefore not be the abandonment of the bolivar in favor of the dollar. It would be the transition from an economy seeking primarily to preserve its symbols to an economy seeking to expand its capabilities. A nation can lose an instrument without losing its identity; it can change its monetary system without abandoning its history; it can change its economic alliances without renouncing its principles. Ultimately, what determines its sovereignty is the capacity of its citizens and institutions to build, produce, learn, innovate, and choose.

The 21st century does not ask Venezuela to become a copy of the United States, China, India, South Korea, or any other model. It asks Venezuela to become a more modern, more productive, and more resilient version of itself. This is precisely where genuine national renewal can begin: not in nostalgia for past power, but in the patient construction of a form of power adapted to the world that is coming.

VENEZUELA IN THE NEW ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD

Venezuela’s monetary transformation cannot be understood independently of the profound restructuring of the international economic and geopolitical order in which it is unfolding. The question of the bolivar, its depreciation, the growing use of the dollar in transactions, and the possible institutionalization of this monetary reality are, in fact, particular manifestations of a much broader transformation affecting trade, energy, supply chains, technology, financial systems, strategic alliances, and relations among major powers. The world in which a state could organize most of its economic policy within its own borders is gradually becoming a thing of the past. A decision made in Washington can now alter energy flows in Caracas; an American tariff measure can reorganize an industrial supply chain in Asia; a decision by Beijing can affect Latin American markets; a war in Europe can change the prices of energy, grain, and raw materials; and a technological innovation developed in California, Shenzhen, Bengaluru, or Seoul can transform the productivity of entire sectors within a few years in economies that do not possess comparable scientific capabilities. The new geography of power has therefore become far more interconnected, but also far more asymmetric, because not all states possess the same means to absorb shocks, access technology, or negotiate with the major centers of power.

This reality is particularly important for Venezuela because the country still possesses a major strategic resource, oil, but that resource alone is no longer sufficient to guarantee lasting international influence. The geopolitical value of energy now depends not only on the existence of reserves, but also on the capacity to produce them at competitive costs, finance the necessary infrastructure, transport the products, attract investment, master the relevant technologies, and integrate them into a global market itself undergoing an energy and industrial transformation. Venezuelan energy power must therefore be placed within a broader architecture involving the United States, China, India, the Gulf states, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and other emerging economies. Possessing a resource no longer automatically constitutes power; it becomes power when the state possesses the institutions, infrastructure, expertise, and international relationships necessary to transform that resource into sustainable economic capacity.

The evolution of American policy under Donald Trump is, from this perspective, one of the major elements of the ongoing restructuring. His trade and foreign policies cannot be reduced to a simple accumulation of tariffs, statements, or diplomatic decisions. They reflect a more transactional conception of American power in which commercial, energy, security, and geopolitical interests are becoming increasingly interconnected. The tariff policy toward China, pressure exerted on certain European and Asian allies, the effort to strengthen supply chains considered strategic, and the more direct use of economic instruments in pursuit of foreign-policy objectives all point to a transformation in the relationship between economic and geopolitical power. This evolution does not mean that the United States is ceasing to be the leading power in the international system. Rather, it suggests that Washington is seeking to deploy its economic, financial, technological, and energy advantages more directly in an environment that has become increasingly competitive.

For countries of the Global South, this transformation creates both vulnerability and room for negotiation. The growing fragmentation of the global economy means that major powers are seeking partners, markets, resources, infrastructure, and strategic positions. A middle-ranking state can therefore gain greater room for maneuver if it is capable of diversifying its relationships. Conversely, excessive dependence on a single partner mechanically reduces its bargaining power. Venezuela will have to learn to operate precisely within this new environment. Its relationship with Washington will remain fundamental because of geographic proximity, the importance of the American market, the role of the dollar in the financial system, and shared energy interests. Yet Caracas can no longer reasonably organize its entire foreign policy around permanent opposition to the United States, any more than it can regard another major power as an automatic solution to its structural difficulties.

China naturally constitutes one of the central elements of this new equation. For years, Beijing has developed a significant economic presence in Latin America through trade, investment, infrastructure, and various financing mechanisms. The Belt and Road Initiative symbolized this ambition to create transcontinental economic networks capable of expanding China’s presence across emerging economies. China itself, however, has gradually adapted its strategy. Financial difficulties encountered by some projects, changes in the Chinese economy, the need for greater risk control, and geopolitical transformations have encouraged Beijing to adopt a more selective approach, one more directly aligned with its own strategic interests. This evolution is essential for Caracas because it means that China should not be viewed either as an unlimited source of financing or as an ideological alternative to the Western system. Beijing acts according to its energy, commercial, industrial, and geopolitical interests, and its relationship with Venezuela will remain sustainable only if it reflects clearly defined mutual interests.

The same caution should be applied to the analysis of the BRICS. Their expansion has unquestionably increased their demographic and economic weight and given greater international visibility to calls for reform of global governance and diversification of the international financial system. It would nevertheless be excessive to regard the BRICS as a homogeneous bloc capable of rapidly replacing existing Western structures. Its members have divergent interests, different political systems, sometimes contradictory economic structures, and strategic priorities that do not necessarily coincide. Their real importance may lie more in the pluralization of the international system than in the creation of a perfectly coherent new bloc. The world appears to be moving less toward the replacement of one hegemony by another than toward the multiplication of decision-making centers and networks of influence.

India illustrates this new logic particularly well. New Delhi is deepening its relations with Washington in defense, technology, and industry while maintaining important relations with Russia, participating in the BRICS, expanding its engagement with the Middle East, and progressively strengthening its ties with Europe and other Asian economies. This is not a contradiction. It reflects a strategic conception in which national interest takes precedence over rigid bloc alignment. South Korea offers another illustration. Closely linked to the United States in security terms, it nevertheless maintains an economic strategy strongly shaped by its own industrial, technological, and commercial interests. Its major companies must operate simultaneously across American, Chinese, European, and Asian markets. These examples demonstrate to Venezuela that modern foreign policy no longer necessarily consists of choosing a camp. It consists of building sufficient capabilities to negotiate with multiple centers of power.

This transformation is also visible in the Middle East and Eurasia. Syria remains a particularly revealing arena for the limits of older influence structures, as it concentrates the interests of the United States, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and several Arab powers. Developments in the Syrian environment demonstrate how alliances built over a given period can be profoundly affected by changes in the economic and military capabilities of their partners. The war in Ukraine has imposed substantial financial, military, and human costs on Russia and has reduced part of its ability to project power simultaneously across multiple theaters. This does not mean that Moscow has ceased to be an important power, but it does demonstrate that political alliances can never be separated from the material capabilities that sustain them. For Caracas, the lesson is significant: ideological proximity to a foreign power is not sufficient to guarantee economic or strategic security.

Iran offers another illustration of this reality. Despite considerable regional influence and significant military capabilities, Tehran must contend with sanctions, economic constraints, tensions with Israel and the United States, and a rapidly evolving regional architecture. Here again, political proximity to Caracas may carry diplomatic significance, but it cannot replace economic diversification and the development of national capabilities. A sustainable Venezuelan strategy must therefore avoid confusing political convergence with permanent economic guarantees.

The relationship with Cuba must also be examined from this perspective. For decades, Cuba represented a privileged political and ideological partner for Venezuela. Yet economic constraints, generational change, and shifts in the international environment have increasingly required Cuban leaders to adopt greater forms of pragmatism. This does not necessarily mean abandoning ideological continuity. It demonstrates above all that no political system can operate indefinitely independently of material realities. When resources become scarce, generations change, and international conditions evolve, doctrines must adapt as well.

This observation brings us back to Venezuela and the central question of this article. The country must not merely decide the future of its monetary system; it must determine whether political categories inherited from the twentieth century are still capable of organizing a society that has entered a digital, globalized, migratory, and technologically transformed economy. An ideology that can no longer explain the real behavior of citizens eventually becomes a political language disconnected from everyday experience. The spontaneous dollarization of part of society is precisely one of those moments when economic reality forces political discourse to confront its own limits.

The technological question makes this rupture even more significant. The twenty-first century is creating a new international hierarchy based on the ability to master artificial intelligence, semiconductors, data, biotechnology, robotics, and new energy systems. Countries that control these technologies possess a cumulative advantage extending far beyond the commercial value of the products they export. They increasingly control standards, value chains, skills, and infrastructure upon which other economies depend. For countries of the Global South, the risk is therefore no longer simply becoming dependent on imported manufactured goods. It is becoming dependent on the technological systems that make it possible to produce, communicate, manage energy, process data, and organize economic exchange.

Venezuela will have to integrate this reality into its reconstruction strategy. It obviously cannot reproduce the research capabilities of Silicon Valley, China, India, or South Korea across every field. It can, however, determine the sectors in which it must develop minimum national capabilities and those in which it can rely on international partnerships. This distinction is essential because sovereignty in the twenty-first century no longer means producing everything one consumes. It means possessing enough alternatives and domestic capabilities to prevent a single dependency from paralyzing the national economy.

Within this new geography, Venezuela nevertheless possesses a considerable advantage: its geographic position and energy potential. Its proximity to North American markets, Caribbean coastline, relations with South America, and significant energy reserves could enable it to become a regional economic platform. Geography, however, does not automatically produce power. It must be transformed through infrastructure, institutions, legal stability, ports, energy networks, digital connectivity, and the quality of human capital. Venezuela could therefore use its energy wealth as a lever for reconstruction rather than as the exclusive foundation of its economic model.

The new global geography thus offers Venezuela a genuine opportunity, but that opportunity can be seized only if Caracas gradually abandons a logic of exclusive dependence and adopts a network-based diplomacy. Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Seoul, Brasília, European capitals, the Gulf states, and Caribbean partners can each play different roles in the country’s reconstruction. The objective should not be to replace one dependency with another, but to create sufficient diversification of relationships to allow Venezuela to defend its interests in an increasingly competitive international environment.

AFTER THE BOLIVAR: WHAT NEW DEFINITION OF VENEZUELAN SOVEREIGNTY?

The question that remains after examining Venezuela’s monetary transformation is far deeper than that of which currency will circulate tomorrow in Venezuelan shops. It concerns the very definition of sovereignty in a world where capital, technology, data, goods, talent, and financial systems cross borders with a speed unknown in the previous century. For much of the twentieth century, sovereignty appeared capable of being defined through a relatively clear set of attributes: control of territory, protection of borders, issuance of a national currency, fiscal capacity, judicial institutions, and autonomy in foreign policy. These attributes remain important, but they are no longer sufficient to determine the effective power of a state. A country may legally control its territory while depending on foreign technologies for its infrastructure; it may possess a national currency while being unable to preserve its value; it may hold enormous natural reserves while depending on imported equipment to exploit them; it may have a large population while continuously losing its most highly trained talent.

Sovereignty must therefore increasingly be understood as effective capacity rather than as a collection of institutional symbols. A state is genuinely sovereign when it possesses the economic, human, technological, financial, institutional, and diplomatic capabilities necessary to defend its interests within an interdependent environment. This conception helps explain the apparent paradox of possible dollarization in Venezuela. The partial relinquishment of monetary sovereignty may represent a formal loss of a traditional state instrument, but under certain circumstances it could also help restore part of the country’s real economic capacity if monetary stability contributes to rebuilding savings, investment, and confidence. The debate should therefore not mechanically oppose sovereignty and dollarization. It should examine whether the chosen monetary architecture increases or diminishes, over time, the nation’s overall capacity to act.

This distinction is fundamental because a national currency is not an end in itself. It is an instrument designed to facilitate exchange, saving, investment, and economic planning. When it persistently ceases to perform these functions, citizens naturally seek protective mechanisms. Dollarization can then appear less as a decision imposed from abroad than as the progressive institutionalization of a practice born from a loss of confidence. A monetary reconstruction policy should therefore begin from this social reality rather than attempt to artificially restore a symbol whose credibility has been destroyed. If the bolivar were ever to regain a central role, that restoration would have to result from institutional rebuilding, fiscal discipline, financial stability, and productivity rather than from a simple administrative decision.

The real question thus becomes one of trust. A currency is stable only when economic actors have sufficient confidence in the ability of institutions to preserve its value. That confidence cannot be decreed. It is built through coherent public policy, credible institutions, control of inflation, stable public finances, and an economy capable of generating real income. When confidence disappears over a prolonged period, individuals change their behavior even before institutions officially acknowledge the shift. Foreign currency then becomes a unit of account, a store of value, and sometimes a daily medium of exchange. The monetary phenomenon therefore becomes a symptom of a much broader institutional problem.

This is why Venezuela’s reconstruction cannot be limited to monetary policy. It must begin with the rebuilding of productive capacity. Oil will probably remain an essential component for decades, but it should be used as a lever for diversification rather than as a permanent substitute for diversification. The country will need to modernize its energy industry, improve its infrastructure, restore refining and transportation capacity, develop related services, and use part of its energy revenues to finance sectors capable of gradually reducing dependence on rent. The objective will not be to abandon oil abruptly, but to prevent oil from remaining the country’s only genuine source of wealth.

Food sovereignty should follow a comparable logic. An economy that depends excessively on external sources to feed its population remains vulnerable to international disruptions, price fluctuations, and logistical crises. Venezuela possesses significant agricultural potential, but transforming that potential into food security requires infrastructure, financing, technology, distribution networks, and sufficiently stable land policies to encourage investment. The objective is not to close the economy to imports, but to create sufficient domestic capacity so that an external crisis does not immediately become a social crisis.

Health and medical technologies must be approached through the same logic. Recent crises have demonstrated how vulnerable international supply chains can become during periods of shock. Venezuela will need to identify the essential medicines, equipment, and medical services for which a minimum national or regional capacity is strategically important, while maintaining partnerships with major international producers. This approach reflects a modern conception of sovereignty: autonomy does not mean autarky. It means possessing sufficient domestic capabilities and sufficient external alternatives to withstand disruptions.

The same transformation is required in the digital sphere. Global technology platforms control an increasing share of communication infrastructure, data, digital services, and commercial systems. Venezuela will not be able to build every tool its economy will need on its own, but it can develop national expertise in cybersecurity, data management, digital services, applied artificial intelligence, and critical infrastructure. It must also avoid becoming dependent on a single foreign provider for systems whose interruption could affect essential sectors. Digital sovereignty will progressively become as important as energy sovereignty.

This new definition of sovereignty also implies a profound transformation of the state. Venezuela does not necessarily need a larger state; it needs a more competent, predictable state capable of measuring the results of its actions. A modern administration must be able to collect and analyze data, plan investments, evaluate public policies, control expenditure, combat corruption, and coordinate economic actors. The credibility of the state will increasingly depend on its ability to produce measurable results rather than on its ability to multiply programs or declarations.

This administrative transformation requires a new political culture. Governments must accept that some policies will fail and may need to be corrected without that correction being interpreted as a political defeat. Statistics must be sufficiently reliable to allow researchers, businesses, citizens, and international institutions to assess the real situation. Transparency must be regarded as economic infrastructure for trust, not as a concession to political opponents. No sustainable investment can flourish in an environment where rules constantly change and fundamental information cannot be independently verified.

Venezuela will also have to learn how to build national continuity beyond political alternation. Infrastructure, education, scientific research, energy modernization, and digital transformation require decades. A national policy that disappears with every change of government inevitably creates uncertainty and discourages long-term investment. Democracy should therefore not be understood as the ability of each majority to dismantle what the previous one built, but as the ability to change governments while preserving institutions and fundamental national objectives.

This requirement for continuity does not mean the absence of political debate. It means that debate should increasingly focus on the quality of public policies, their financing, their results, and their consequences. Venezuela would benefit from establishing national objectives extending beyond electoral cycles in areas such as energy, education, food security, infrastructure, health, research, and digital transformation. A mature democracy can change governments without repeatedly questioning the foundations necessary for the state’s economic survival.

The relationship with the United States must also be reconsidered within this framework. Geographic proximity, the importance of the American market, the role of the dollar in the international financial system, and shared energy interests make this relationship structurally important. Yet it should no longer be conceived solely through the ideological confrontation of the past. A mature relationship with Washington should allow Venezuela to defend its interests while recognizing areas of possible cooperation. At the same time, Caracas will need to strengthen its relationships with Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Europe, China, India, South Korea, and the Gulf states. Diplomatic diversification will be more effective to the extent that it is supported by an economy capable of offering concrete interests to its partners.

This approach could allow Venezuela to transform its geographic position into a strategic advantage. Its Caribbean coastline, energy resources, proximity to major American and South American markets, and potential connections with Caribbean economies offer the possibility of becoming a regional energy, commercial, and logistics platform. But realizing this potential will require extensive modernization of ports, energy systems, roads, and digital infrastructure, together with a sufficiently predictable legal environment to attract long-term capital. Geography provides a potential advantage; only institutions and investment can convert that advantage into economic power.

The generational question may be even more important. Young Venezuelans who will build the country in the coming decades do not share the same historical references as generations that experienced the great ideological confrontations of the twentieth century. They are growing up in a world of social networks, international migration, artificial intelligence, remote work, digital platforms, and the constant circulation of information. Their relationship with the state and with sovereignty will necessarily be different. They are likely to judge institutions less by their ability to defend a doctrine than by their ability to create concrete opportunities.

This generational evolution requires a new conception of patriotism. Twenty-first-century patriotism cannot be based solely on the defense of national symbols or the repetition of historical narratives. It must also mean the ability to build functioning schools, hospitals that provide care, reliable infrastructure, productive businesses, and an economy capable of retaining its talent. A nation that forces its most qualified young people to seek elsewhere the opportunities it cannot provide gradually loses part of its strategic capacity.

Yet Venezuela possesses an immense human reservoir through its diaspora. Millions of Venezuelans living abroad can become an economic, scientific, cultural, and technological network connecting the country to the world’s major centers. An intelligent policy should seek to transform this diaspora into a bridge rather than regard it solely as the consequence of a crisis. Skills acquired abroad, professional networks, capital, knowledge, and entrepreneurial experience could contribute to reconstruction if national institutions become sufficiently credible to attract these resources again.

The climate challenge must also be incorporated into this new conception. Energy, agricultural, and urban infrastructure must be designed with climate-related risks in mind. Modernizing the country provides an opportunity to build infrastructure that is more resilient and efficient than that of the past. Development can no longer be measured solely by growth in gross domestic product; it must also be assessed by a society’s ability to absorb future shocks.

All these dimensions lead to an important conclusion: Venezuelan sovereignty can no longer be based primarily on the state’s ability to control a currency. It must be based on the country’s ability to produce, learn, innovate, negotiate, protect its citizens, and adapt. A nation can lose part of its monetary autonomy while simultaneously gaining stability, investment, and productivity. It can also retain a national currency and remain deeply dependent if it controls none of the technologies, value chains, or financial capabilities required for development. True sovereignty therefore lies in the overall balance of national capabilities.

THE CPGNNEWS PERSPECTIVE: FROM THE BOLIVAR TO NATIONAL CAPACITY, VENEZUELA AND ITS CIVILIZATIONAL CHOICE

At the end of this analysis, the Venezuelan question appears in a much broader light than that of monetary reform or the possible institutional advancement of dollarization. Venezuela stands before a historic transformation affecting its economy, institutions, relationship with sovereignty, foreign policy, and place in a world where traditional categories of power are gradually being replaced by new forms of influence. The fate of the bolivar is one of the most visible symptoms of this transformation, but it is not the whole story. Behind the currency lies a fundamental question: how can a nation preserve its capacity to make decisions when finance, technology, production chains, data, capital, and talent now move at speeds far beyond political borders?

The possible consolidation of dollarization should therefore be interpreted neither as an ideological victory for the United States nor as the definitive defeat of Venezuelan sovereignty. It should be understood as the outcome of a crisis of monetary confidence whose causes are essentially domestic, even though its international environment plays a decisive role. When citizens choose a foreign currency to preserve the value of their labor, they are expressing an economic preference before expressing an ideological position. The phenomenon becomes politically significant precisely because it reveals a divergence between the state’s formal sovereignty and society’s actual confidence. The central issue is therefore not whether the dollar is politically desirable, but what Venezuela will do with the stability its use might provide.

This distinction is decisive. Dollarization cannot rebuild the Venezuelan economy by itself. It does not modernize refineries or ports; it does not train engineers, reform universities, guarantee legal security, or automatically create a competitive industrial base. It can nevertheless contribute to establishing a more predictable monetary environment in which savings and investment become less exposed to destruction through inflation. Its possible success will therefore depend entirely on the policies that accompany it. If monetary stability becomes the starting point for a productive, industrial, institutional, and technological strategy, it could contribute to sustainable reconstruction. If it merely facilitates imports without productive transformation, it risks creating a new dependency.

This is why the genuine national project should not be framed around a choice between the bolivar and the dollar, but around rebuilding Venezuela’s productive capacity. Oil will remain a major component of that capacity, but it should be used as a source of financing for broader economic diversification. Agriculture, petrochemicals, industry, services, tourism, logistics, digital technologies, and selected scientific activities should be developed according to the country’s actual advantages. Diversification does not mean abandoning natural resources; it means ceasing to regard them as sufficient justification for the structure of the national economy.

This transformation also requires a new conception of social policy. A modern economy cannot be sustainable if productivity gains are concentrated in a minority while a large part of the population remains excluded from the opportunities created by technological transformation. Artificial intelligence and automation will profoundly alter labor markets. Venezuela will therefore need to invest in lifelong learning, technical education, digital skills, and mechanisms enabling workers to change occupations as technology transforms their sectors. Technology should not be treated as an abstract threat; it must be integrated into a human-development strategy.

This question is particularly important in a country that has experienced massive migration. Rebuilding human capital will probably be one of the most difficult challenges. A significant portion of Venezuelan expertise is now located outside the national territory. Yet this dispersion can also become an asset if it is integrated into a modern diaspora policy. The economic, scientific, and professional networks built by Venezuelans abroad can become channels for investment, knowledge transfer, entrepreneurship, and access to international markets. The country must therefore move beyond the traditional conception of the diaspora as merely a source of financial remittances and recognize it as an international extension of national human capital.

The break with the twentieth century is also visible in the way power itself must be understood. For a long time, international power was associated primarily with territory, natural resources, military forces, and the size of the economy. These elements remain important, but they are now complemented by mastery of technologies, data, financial networks, digital infrastructure, supply chains, and scientific expertise. A country can possess enormous natural reserves and remain technologically dependent; conversely, a country with few natural resources can exercise global influence through its companies, universities, technologies, and financial capital. This transformation of power is probably one of the most important realities Venezuela must incorporate into its national strategy.

Current geopolitical developments reinforce this necessity. Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies, Sino-American competition, transformations in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, Russia’s difficulties and adaptations, tensions surrounding Iran, Cuba’s evolution, the transformation of the BRICS, India’s growing influence, and South Korea’s ability to defend its own industrial interests all demonstrate that the international system is becoming less predictable and more transactional. Countries of the Global South must now navigate an environment in which no major power can be regarded as a permanent partner across every domain. Energy interests may bring two states closer while technological interests place them at odds; commercial interests may encourage cooperation while security interests generate tension.

Venezuela must therefore learn to practice diversified diplomacy. Its relationship with the United States will remain structurally important, but it should not prevent Caracas from developing relations with China, India, Brazil, Europe, South Korea, the Gulf states, and Caribbean partners. Genuine diplomatic independence does not consist of refusing partnerships with major powers. It consists of ensuring that no single partner can determine the full range of national options. The more diversified its economic relationships become, the greater Venezuela’s bargaining capacity will be.

Such diplomacy, however, can be credible only if it rests on an economy capable of offering something of value to its partners. Oil is an asset, but the future must also be built around transformed energy, agribusiness, infrastructure, services, logistics, and, progressively, technological activities. Venezuela could become an important regional actor if it succeeds in transforming its geographic position into a commercial and energy platform linking South America, the Caribbean, and North American markets. This ambition requires massive modernization of ports, roads, energy networks, and digital infrastructure, together with a sufficiently predictable legal environment to attract long-term capital.

This reconstruction must also be conceived across generations. The Venezuela of the future will not be the Venezuela of the generations that experienced the twentieth-century oil economy. Young people who will build the country in the coming decades will live in an economy shaped by digital technologies, artificial intelligence, international mobility, and the instantaneous circulation of information. They cannot be permanently mobilized through the same political categories that structured the debates of their parents. Their relationship with sovereignty will be increasingly connected to their ability to study, work, build businesses, communicate, and shape their future rather than simply to the existence of a national monetary symbol.

This is where the civilizational dimension of Venezuela’s transformation probably lies. The country does not need to abandon its history, but it must accept that history cannot be used as an intellectual prison. The ideologies that dominated much of the twentieth century were developed in an environment shaped by heavy industry, the Cold War, political blocs, more rigid economic borders, and a much more limited circulation of information. The twenty-first century is structured around networks, data, technology, global value chains, migration, and far greater interdependence. Mechanically reproducing the categories of the previous century would amount to attempting to solve the problems of a digital society with the intellectual instruments of an industrial society.

This rupture does not mean that everything inherited from the past must be rejected. It means that values must be distinguished from instruments. Sovereignty, national dignity, social justice, solidarity, and collective identity can remain fundamental values. The means through which they are realized, however, must evolve. Twenty-first-century sovereignty will not necessarily be less national because it is more open. It may instead become more effective if it enables the country to participate in global networks without losing the ability to defend its interests.

Patriotism must also be reconsidered. It should no longer be merely an emotional defense of territory or symbols, but a concrete determination to build a country in which citizens can live with dignity. Modern patriotism can be measured by the quality of schools, the reliability of electricity, the safety of roads, the capacity of hospitals, the quality of universities, the possibility of creating a business, and the ability to retain talent. The true power of a state ultimately lies in the confidence its citizens can place in their future.

This conception helps explain why the monetary question is so important while remaining insufficient. A currency is one of the fundamental instruments of an economic society, but it is not its civilizational project. If Venezuela succeeds in restoring confidence, the currency can once again become an instrument rather than a permanent problem. If institutions remain weak, no monetary architecture will be able to compensate sustainably for the absence of productivity, fiscal discipline, and credibility.

Reconstruction must therefore be conceived as a long-term process in which monetary stability, institutional reform, economic diversification, energy modernization, digital transformation, education, and international openness reinforce one another. There should be no search for a single solution to a crisis that has become systemic. Venezuela does not suffer from one imbalance; it suffers from the interaction of multiple vulnerabilities accumulated over time. Precisely for that reason, the response must also be systemic.

The true objective should not simply be to restore what the country had before the crisis. It should be to build an economy capable of functioning under the conditions of the world that is emerging. Restoring the past in its entirety would be insufficient if that past already contained the vulnerabilities that contributed to the crisis. Venezuela must use the experience of its own collapse to build stronger institutions, a more diversified economy, and a society better equipped to withstand shocks.

From this perspective, the possible gradual disappearance of the bolivar as the principal transaction currency can be interpreted as part of a broader historical event. It could represent the symbolic end of an era in which monetary sovereignty was regarded as one of the ultimate expressions of national independence. But that end would not necessarily constitute defeat. It could instead mark the beginning of a more mature reflection on what sovereignty truly means in a deeply integrated global economy. A nation is not sovereign because it possesses a banknote bearing its name; it is sovereign when it possesses the institutions and capabilities necessary to determine its future.

Venezuela still possesses numerous assets with which to build that capacity. Its energy resources, geographic position, agricultural potential, human capital, diaspora, regional relationships, and opportunities for modernization constitute a significant foundation. But these assets remain possibilities until they are transformed into institutions, investment, skills, and productivity. The next phase of Venezuelan history will therefore depend less on the quantity of resources available than on the quality of the transformation those resources make possible.

The CPGNNews Perspective therefore leads to a conclusion that extends far beyond the Venezuelan case. The crisis of the bolivar reveals a question that many countries will have to confront during the twenty-first century: how can real sovereignty be preserved in a world where currencies, capital, technologies, data, value chains, and talent move beyond borders? The answer can no longer be exclusively ideological. It must be institutional, technological, economic, and profoundly human. Venezuela can choose to regard this transformation as a threat to its identity or as an opportunity to rebuild a form of national power adapted to new realities. In the first case, it will attempt to restore a past that no longer exists. In the second, it will use the resources of the past to build the capabilities of the future.

The real question is therefore no longer simply which currency Venezuelans will use tomorrow, but what kind of economy they will build around that currency, what institutions they will establish to protect it, what capabilities they will pass on to their children, and what place they will choose to occupy in the new global geography. Venezuela cannot determine the transformation of the international system by itself, but it can determine the quality of its own response. It cannot prevent the rise of artificial intelligence, competition among major powers, or the fragmentation of global economic chains, but it can choose not to remain technologically passive. It cannot control decisions made in Washington, Beijing, New Delhi, Moscow, or Brussels, but it can strengthen its capacity to negotiate with each of them.

This is ultimately where the true historical rupture lies. Venezuela does not merely need a new monetary policy; it needs a new conception of national power. A form of power based less on rent and more on productivity; less on ideological confrontation and more on negotiating capacity; less on dependence upon a single partner and more on diversification; less on preserving the categories of the twentieth century and more on preparing for the civilizational realities of the twenty-first.

The country does not need to become less Venezuelan in order to enter this new world. It needs to become sufficiently strong, capable, and confident to enter it without losing control of its own destiny. Only under that condition can the current monetary crisis cease to be merely the story of a currency that lost its value and become the far more consequential story of a nation that rediscovered its capacity to create its own.

GENERAL CONCLUSION: VENEZUELA AT THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW ERA

The prospect of Venezuela fully adopting the U.S. dollar may, at first glance, appear to be a strictly monetary debate. Yet it is far more consequential than that. Should such a reform be adopted, it would not simply represent a change in the means of payment used by businesses and households; it would mark the institutional culmination of an economic transformation that has already been unfolding in practice for several years. The current debate is precisely about the difference between de facto dollarization, driven by the behavior of economic actors confronted with the collapse of confidence in the bolivar, and de jure dollarization, which would require a political and legal decision of considerable importance. Recent developments show that the issue has advanced far enough to be discussed at the institutional level, since Steve Hanke has been approached as an adviser to an influential member of the National Assembly and is working on a proposal for the full adoption of the dollar. Nothing at this stage, however, allows this possibility to be presented as a decision definitively adopted by the Venezuelan state. (Yahoo Finance)

This qualification is not merely a matter of editorial caution. It lies at the heart of the credibility of this dossier. In a period of profound economic and political upheaval, a sufficiently repeated rumor can quickly acquire the appearance of an established fact. International journalism and analysis must precisely resist this confusion. Venezuela remains, in legal terms, a state with its own currency and monetary architecture; the question now being raised is whether that architecture could undergo a profound transformation. The distinction between “Venezuela is abandoning the bolivar” and “Venezuela is seriously considering a plan to abandon the bolivar” is therefore not secondary. It separates verifiable fact from political projection.

The phenomenon that nevertheless makes this possibility credible is the prolonged deterioration of the bolivar’s monetary functions. Available data show a very significant depreciation of the currency in 2026. According to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve compiled by FRED, the monthly average exchange rate rose from 445.53 bolivars per dollar in March 2026 to 713.40 in July, while daily data had already reached 744.76 by the end of July. (FRED) Yahoo Finance market data still showed a rate above 780 bolivars per dollar as of August 24, 2026. (Yahoo Finance) These figures are not merely a statistical series. They tell the story of a currency whose ability to serve as a store of value and a stable reference point for economic decisions has weakened considerably.

This is precisely where the real political question begins. When a population gradually stops using its national currency as its principal store of value, it is not necessarily renouncing its national identity; it is first and foremost seeking to protect the fruits of its labor. The currency then becomes the place where a much deeper crisis of confidence becomes visible. The employee who seeks to preserve part of his or her income in a more stable currency, the company that sets its prices according to the dollar, the property owner who assesses assets in another unit of account, and the merchant who calculates according to the replacement cost of goods are all, without necessarily intending to do so, participating in a transformation of the monetary system. De facto dollarization thus appears less as an economic doctrine imposed by a government than as the cumulative result of thousands of individual decisions.

This dynamic explains why the proposal advanced by Steve Hanke deserves to be taken seriously, including by those who do not share his prescription. His argument is that full dollarization would eliminate the risk of monetary creation designed to finance public deficits and would therefore help restore price stability. He also argues that monetary stabilization could reduce interest rates, encourage investment and contribute to a recovery in oil production. These effects, however, are not automatic. They depend on Venezuela’s ability to restore public finances, rebuild its banking system, attract productive investment and reconstruct the infrastructure required for a modern economy. (Yahoo Finance)

Dollarization would therefore not be the end of Venezuela’s crisis; at best, it would be a change in the framework within which that crisis would have to be addressed. It could eliminate certain monetary policy instruments, but it would eliminate neither debt nor deficits, neither infrastructure problems nor institutional weaknesses, nor dependence on oil. Nor would it, by itself, create the scientific and technological capabilities required to transform the country. It could provide a monetary anchor; it could not provide Venezuela with a national development strategy.

This distinction is fundamental because it allows us to move beyond the two ideological interpretations that often dominate debates over dollarization. The first views any adoption of the dollar as a form of national capitulation. The second treats dollarization as a universal solution capable of resolving economic imbalances on its own. Both approaches are inadequate. A currency is an economic and institutional instrument; its effectiveness depends on the environment in which it operates. An economy can be dollarized and prosper, just as a dollarized economy can continue to face serious structural problems. Likewise, possessing a national currency can provide a useful economic policy instrument when institutions are credible, but become a source of vulnerability when it is used to finance persistent imbalances.

Venezuela therefore faces a choice that extends far beyond the opposition between the bolivar and the dollar. It must choose among several conceptions of its economic future. The first would be an attempt to restore the national currency, either in its current form or in a reformed version, while gradually rebuilding the credibility of the central bank and public finances. The second would be to institutionalize a form of dollarization that is already widespread in parts of the economy. The third would be to maintain a hybrid system in which the dollar plays a central role while the bolivar remains the national currency. Each option carries different advantages, costs and conditions for success. None can be assessed independently of the fiscal, banking, productive and institutional framework that would accompany it.

But behind this monetary choice lies an even deeper question: what conception of sovereignty does Venezuela want to carry into the twenty-first century?

For much of the twentieth century, economic sovereignty was understood through direct control of national instruments. Possessing one’s own currency, controlling one’s banks, protecting domestic industries, exploiting natural resources and maintaining an autonomous economic policy were regarded as fundamental expressions of independence. This conception corresponded to an era in which economies were less integrated, technologies circulated more slowly and international production chains were far less complex.

The twenty-first century has profoundly altered that architecture. A company may be legally Venezuelan while depending on foreign software, international servers, Asian components, dollar-denominated financing and markets located across several continents. A bank may be based in Caracas while connected to international financial infrastructure. An oil company may possess enormous reserves while depending on equipment, capital, technology and expertise originating in several countries. A university may educate students locally while relying on digital infrastructure designed elsewhere. Sovereignty has therefore not disappeared; its nature has changed.

This is perhaps one of the most important conclusions of this entire study. Twenty-first-century sovereignty can no longer be measured solely by the number of instruments legally controlled by the state. It must be measured by the actual capabilities available to a nation to make decisions, produce, learn, negotiate and withstand shocks. A national currency without credibility may be a symbol of sovereignty but also a source of fragility. Conversely, a foreign currency used within a stable institutional framework can reduce certain monetary policy options while contributing to economic stability. The real debate must therefore focus on the relationship between formal sovereignty and effective capacity.

This transformation extends beyond Venezuela. It concerns a large part of the developing world. Countries across the Global South are simultaneously confronting a new technological revolution, the rise of artificial intelligence, the reconfiguration of industrial supply chains, competition between the United States and China, changing energy markets, transforming financial flows and a new geography of investment. Some countries possess abundant natural resources but remain behind in advanced technologies. Others have young populations but struggle to transform that demographic resource into human capital. Some attract investment while remaining dependent on foreign technologies. The true international divide of the twenty-first century may therefore be less about simply separating rich countries from poor countries than about separating societies capable of learning, innovating and adapting from those trapped in economic models that are gradually becoming obsolete.

This is where artificial intelligence introduces another major rupture. Digital technologies are no longer transforming only the way companies communicate or sell their products; they are beginning to reshape production, research, finance, health care, education, public administration and defense. Countries that control the infrastructure required for this revolution are accumulating an advantage that can become self-reinforcing. They attract capital, researchers, companies and talent, which in turn strengthens their capacity for innovation. Countries that remain on the margins, by contrast, risk becoming increasingly dependent on technologies designed elsewhere.

Venezuela will therefore have to treat digital transformation as a matter of national development rather than as merely another economic sector. The reconstruction of its universities, scientific training, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, data governance, digital public services and the use of artificial intelligence in energy, agriculture, health and education will gradually have to become components of its sovereignty strategy. The country obviously cannot reproduce the technological capabilities of China, the United States, India or South Korea across every field. It can, however, identify the sectors in which a minimum national capability is indispensable and build international partnerships around those priorities.

The same logic must be applied to geopolitics. The contemporary world is no longer organized around blocs as rigid as those of the Cold War. Major powers cooperate in some areas and compete in others. India can deepen its relationship with Washington while maintaining important ties with Moscow and participating in BRICS. South Korea can remain a strategic U.S. ally while pursuing its own industrial and commercial interests. The Gulf states are simultaneously expanding their relations with Washington, Beijing, New Delhi and other partners. China maintains commercial relations with countries that themselves have close ties to the United States. Russia continues to preserve networks of influence despite the constraints imposed by the war in Ukraine.

This new geography does not mean that power relations have disappeared. It means that states have more intermediate strategies available to them. The ability to negotiate therefore becomes an essential component of sovereignty. Venezuela could benefit from this environment if it stops defining its foreign policy primarily through ideological alignment. Its energy, commercial, geographic and technological interests should shape a foreign policy flexible enough to engage with several centers of power.

From this perspective, the relationship with the United States is unavoidable, but it should not constitute the sole horizon of Venezuelan foreign policy. China is an important economic partner, but it should not become a new source of dependency. India is a major technological and demographic power with which new forms of cooperation can be explored. Brazil is a natural regional partner. Colombia holds particular importance because of the border and the extensive human and commercial ties between the two countries. The Caribbean is a geographic space to which Venezuela belongs historically and economically. Europe remains a major financial, industrial and technological center. Diversifying these relationships could give Caracas greater room for maneuver than a strategy based on an exclusive alliance.

The oil question lies at the heart of this equation. Venezuela possesses considerable energy potential, but reserves alone do not automatically guarantee production. Infrastructure, investment, technology, expertise and the regulatory environment determine the ability to transform reserves into revenue. The real strategy should therefore be to use the reconstruction of the energy sector as a platform for financing gradual economic diversification. Oil should no longer be merely the final destination of the economic strategy; it should become one of its financing instruments.

The country must also think about what comes after the rent. The global energy transition will not necessarily mean the rapid disappearance of oil, but it will gradually alter the structure of demand, environmental standards, technologies and investment patterns. A Venezuela that rebuilt its economy exclusively around another oil cycle would risk reproducing the very vulnerability that has already weakened it. The real opportunity lies in using the resources available today to prepare the sectors that will be competitive tomorrow.

The human dimension will ultimately determine the success or failure of any reconstruction. A country does not recover through capital and infrastructure alone. It recovers through people capable of using, maintaining and improving those assets while creating new economic activities. Venezuela should therefore view its diaspora not merely as a consequence of the crisis, but as a potential component of its reconstruction. Skills accumulated abroad, professional networks, entrepreneurial experience and scientific knowledge can help reconnect the country with the world’s major economic centers.

This issue is inseparable from the question of youth. The new generations will experience the twenty-first century through a different set of references from those that shaped the great ideological confrontations of the previous century. Their relationship with politics will be influenced by digital technology, international mobility, social networks, artificial intelligence and the transformation of work. They will increasingly judge the state by its ability to offer them a genuine opportunity to build their future. The patriotism capable of mobilizing them will therefore be less about speeches than about results.

It is precisely here that we must locate the ideological and civilizational rupture running through this entire dossier. Venezuela is not merely facing the exhaustion of a monetary model; it is facing the exhaustion of certain intellectual categories inherited from the twentieth century. This does not mean that all the values or experiences of that century should be rejected. It means that political responses must now be adapted to a radically different environment. Twenty-first-century societies operate through global networks, use technologies evolving at extraordinary speed and confront challenges that previous generations could not have anticipated.

The history of the bolivar could thus become a symbol of a much broader transition. For decades, the national currency represented a visible expression of economic autonomy. Its gradual depreciation demonstrated the limits of that sovereignty when it is not supported by sufficiently strong institutions. If Venezuela ultimately chose to replace the bolivar with the dollar, the decision should not be interpreted solely as the abandonment of a symbol. It could also be understood as the institutional recognition of a reality already deeply embedded in certain economic practices. But such recognition would have meaning only if accompanied by a far more ambitious reconstruction of national capacity.

A genuine Venezuelan renaissance could therefore not be monetary alone. It would have to be institutional, productive, technological, educational, energy-related and human. The country would have to rebuild confidence in its institutions, restore its infrastructure, modernize its economy, strengthen its universities, attract productive investment, reconnect with its diaspora and prepare its young people for an economy increasingly dominated by knowledge and digital technologies.

The essential question is ultimately not whether Venezuela will preserve the bolivar forever or officially adopt the dollar. The essential question is whether the country will succeed in building an economy sufficiently productive, diversified and technologically capable for its currency to cease being the primary concern of its citizens. A prosperous society does not constantly think about the survival of its currency; it uses its currency as an ordinary instrument of economic life. It is when the currency becomes a permanent source of anxiety that we understand it is no longer merely a monetary problem.

Venezuela therefore stands at a moment when an economic decision could become the symbol of a historical transition. But that transition will succeed only if it enables the country to move from a logic of survival to a logic of construction. The possible disappearance of the bolivar would then be neither the beginning nor the end of the story. It would be one of the visible markers of a much deeper transformation: the passage from a Venezuela organized around rent, currency and ideological confrontation toward a Venezuela compelled to think in terms of productivity, competence, technology, diversification and negotiated power.

Perhaps this is the true lesson of the crisis. Sovereignty does not disappear when a country changes its currency; it disappears when a society ceases to possess the capabilities necessary to determine its own future. Conversely, a nation can undergo a profound monetary transformation while rebuilding a more modern form of sovereignty, provided that it develops the institutions, skills and infrastructure that will allow it to shape its destiny in an interdependent world.

Venezuela cannot stop the transformation of the world. It cannot prevent competition between Washington and Beijing, slow the revolution in artificial intelligence, reshape energy markets on its own or restore the international order of the twentieth century. It can, however, choose how it enters the new century. It can continue searching for answers to present problems in the ideological conflicts of the past, or accept that the real challenge now lies in building national capabilities strong enough to negotiate with all major powers without becoming totally dependent on any one of them.

Venezuela’s historic choice will therefore not simply be monetary. It will be generational, institutional and civilizational. And that is precisely why the debate surrounding the bolivar deserves to be examined far beyond Venezuela’s borders. It may foreshadow a question that will increasingly confront many other states: in a world where technology, finance, energy and data are becoming the new infrastructures of power, what does it still mean to be sovereign?

The answer will probably not be found in a return to the past. It will be found in the ability to build the future.

THE FOUR TRAJECTORIES OF VENEZUELA TOWARD 2030: BETWEEN STABILIZATION, DOLLARIZATION, FRAGMENTATION AND RECONSTRUCTION

Venezuela’s monetary future cannot be reduced to a simplistic opposition between retaining the bolivar and adopting the dollar. The debate that accelerated in August 2026 instead shows that a much broader choice is now taking shape around the country’s economic reconstruction. Steve Hanke has confirmed that he prepared a dollarization bill and says it would convert accounts denominated in bolivars into dollars at a determined conversion rate, while sharply limiting the Banco Central de Venezuela’s ability to conduct discretionary monetary policy. He now clarifies that his proposal does not necessarily call for the institutional abolition of the central bank, contrary to the initial presentation made by Fortune. This development is important for our analysis because it demonstrates that the debate itself is still evolving and that it would be premature to present a definitive architecture as a state decision. (El Diario Venezuela – elDiario.com)

The first possible trajectory is pragmatic stabilization without an immediate monetary rupture. Under this scenario, Caracas would retain the bolivar while recognizing the increasingly significant role played by the dollar in the real economy. The objective would be to gradually restore monetary credibility, reduce deficits, limit monetary creation intended to finance public spending and strengthen financial institutions. Such a strategy would have the advantage of preserving a national monetary policy capacity, but it would require precisely what the system has lacked most over the past several decades: sufficient confidence to persuade households and businesses to retain their assets in the national currency. The problem would therefore not be merely technical. It would be psychological, institutional and political. A currency can be legally maintained by decree; it cannot be made credible by decree if economic actors already anticipate its depreciation.

This first trajectory would nevertheless have a coherent rationale. Maintaining a national currency would allow the government to preserve a lender of last resort, a liquidity-management instrument and the ability to intervene in the event of an economic shock. This is precisely one of the arguments behind the reservations expressed by some Venezuelan economists regarding full dollarization. The question is therefore not whether a national currency is inherently better than a foreign currency, but whether the institutions capable of making that currency credible can be rebuilt quickly enough. If the answer is yes, maintaining the bolivar could become an instrument of reconstruction. If the answer is no, preserving the monetary symbol without restoring its credibility could prolong instability. The Venezuelan public debate reflects precisely this tension. (El Pitazo)

The second trajectory is official and institutional dollarization. It would constitute the most spectacular break with the monetary architecture inherited from the twentieth century. The dollar is already widely present in Venezuelan transactions and economic practices, a phenomenon often described as spontaneous or de facto dollarization. Hanke’s proposal would seek to transform this social and commercial reality into a legal framework. The transition would therefore be less about an economy suddenly discovering the dollar than about an economy formalizing a process that is already well advanced. Fortune describes the proposal as potentially one of the most significant monetary changes since the introduction of the euro, while Hanke himself estimates the probability of its adoption at between 50% and 80%. That estimate obviously comes from the author of the proposal and should not be confused with an independent institutional probability assessment. (Fortune)

The principal advantage of such a trajectory would be the possibility of establishing a more stable unit of account relatively quickly and reducing the risk of further depreciation associated with national monetary issuance. But the same decision would create a significant constraint: Caracas would no longer possess an autonomous monetary policy comparable to that of a state with a fully independent currency. U.S. monetary policy would be determined in Washington according to the conditions of the U.S. economy, rather than according to Venezuela’s specific needs. The question would then become one of fiscal and productive adjustment. A dollarized economy needs mechanisms capable of absorbing shocks other than currency depreciation. This requires credible public finances, a sound banking system, an export-capable economy and sufficient mobility of capital and labor.

The third trajectory is hybrid or persistently informal dollarization. It could emerge if the political debate produced neither a full restoration of the bolivar nor the official adoption of the dollar. Venezuela would then continue operating across several monetary layers: the dollar as a store of value and a preferred instrument for many transactions, the bolivar for certain public expenditures and domestic obligations, and dollar-backed digital instruments for part of the transfer and payment system. This scenario might appear less dramatic than an official reform, but it would carry a particular risk: prolonging an ambiguous monetary architecture without fully resolving its institutional problems.

Such a situation can become durable when economic actors have already changed their behavior but the law and institutions have failed to follow. The official currency survives, but another currency gradually becomes the reference unit of the private economy. The result can be a form of permanent duality in which companies and households must manage multiple units of account, multiple risks and multiple conversion mechanisms. This configuration can provide some short-term flexibility, but it complicates economic policy and makes it more difficult to assess the true financial condition of households and businesses. Venezuela could then remain in a monetary middle ground, neither genuinely sovereign in monetary policy nor fully integrated into an institutional dollar regime.

The fourth trajectory is broader economic and institutional reconstruction, in which the monetary question would be placed within a much more ambitious national project. Under this scenario, Venezuela would seek not merely to stabilize prices or restore confidence in payments. It would use monetary stabilization, whatever its final form, as the first stage of productive reconstruction. Energy, industry, agriculture, infrastructure, transportation, telecommunications, education, research and digital technologies would become the principal pillars of a strategy designed to transform resource rents into productive capacity.

This fourth trajectory is probably the most strategically significant because it allows the country to move beyond the overly narrow alternative between monetary sovereignty and monetary stability. The real objective should be the construction of productive sovereignty. A country that produces enough, exports enough, develops sufficient skills and controls enough of its essential infrastructure possesses far greater negotiating capacity than a country that legally maintains a national currency while remaining heavily dependent on external revenues, foreign technologies and financing beyond its control.

The choice among these four trajectories will depend on several variables that are not all monetary. The first will be the state’s ability to restore fiscal discipline. The second will be the reconstruction of the energy sector. The third will be debt restructuring. The fourth will be reform of the banking system. The fifth will be the ability to attract long-term private investment. The sixth will be the reconstruction of human capital. The seventh will be institutional quality. The eighth will be the ability to integrate Venezuela into a global economy transformed by digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

The oil sector will be particularly decisive. According to Fortune, Venezuelan production remains well below its level at the end of the 1990s, while the country’s debt is estimated at around $250 billion in the figures cited by the article. Hanke believes that increased oil production could provide the resources needed to restructure this debt and attract greater volumes of foreign capital. These projections, however, remain strategic assumptions rather than established outcomes. They presuppose a substantial improvement in infrastructure, investment conditions, sector governance and access to markets. (Fortune)

Venezuela must therefore avoid a historic mistake: believing that an improvement in oil revenues alone would be enough to resolve its structural problems. Higher production could generate additional foreign currency, facilitate debt servicing and strengthen external reserves. But if those revenues are simply reinjected into an economy heavily dependent on resource rents, the country could reproduce the same cycle in a new form. Oil reconstruction should therefore be designed as a source of financing for diversification, rather than as another justification for dependence.

The same principle applies to dollarization. If the dollar officially becomes the dominant currency while the country remains structurally unproductive, monetary stability will not be enough. It could even make certain weaknesses more visible by removing exchange-rate mechanisms that previously obscured them. An economy does not become competitive simply because its unit of account is stable. Productivity, infrastructure quality, education, legal certainty, access to capital and innovative capacity remain the fundamental determinants of long-term growth.

The reconstruction scenario also requires a reconsideration of the role of the state. Venezuela’s crisis has often been analyzed through the opposition between state intervention and the market economy. That opposition becomes increasingly inadequate when observing the most successful contemporary economies. The United States, China, India, South Korea and the major European economies combine, according to different models, markets, public intervention, industrial policy, strategic investment and support for innovation. Venezuela will therefore have to construct its own balance rather than mechanically reproducing a foreign model.

This observation brings us back to the civilizational question developed in the previous conclusion. The twenty-first century does not necessarily require less government; it requires a different state. A state capable of establishing reliable rules, protecting contracts, building infrastructure, investing in education, developing digital capabilities, securing data and organizing international partnerships. Public power can no longer be measured solely by the volume of spending or by administrative control over the economy. It must be measured by its ability to create the conditions under which a society can learn, produce and innovate.

This is also why comparisons with Ecuador, Panama or other economies that have adopted the dollar must be made cautiously. A common currency does not automatically produce the same results in different institutional environments. History, productive structure, demographics, natural resources, debt, geography and international relations fundamentally alter the conditions for success. Venezuela possesses a characteristic that many dollarized economies do not possess on the same scale: an enormous energy-resource base. But it also possesses an exceptional weakness: the depth of the institutional and productive disorganization inherited from several decades of crisis.

The trajectory toward 2030 will therefore depend less on the dramatic character of the monetary decision than on the ability to coordinate several transformations simultaneously. Monetary reform without fiscal reform would be insufficient. Fiscal reform without productive reconstruction would be fragile. Oil reconstruction without diversification would reproduce dependency. Openness to investment without legal certainty would create opportunistic growth rather than sustainable transformation. A digital strategy without educational reform would remain superficial. And a foreign policy without diversified partnerships could transform an old dependency into a new one.

Venezuela must consequently choose a comprehensive trajectory rather than an isolated measure. The debate over the dollar matters precisely because it reveals the interdependence of all these issues. Behind the currency lie debt, oil, banks, investment, sovereignty, foreign policy, technology, youth and the diaspora. A monetary decision can therefore become a test of a state’s ability to undertake a much broader reconstruction.

By 2030, the best scenario will not necessarily be the one in which Venezuela has simply adopted the dollar, retained the bolivar or invented a new monetary architecture. It will be the one in which the country has succeeded in restoring confidence, increasing productivity, diversifying exports, rebuilding human capital and transforming natural resources into long-term investment. The currency will then have returned to what it should always have been: an instrument serving the economy rather than the daily mirror of its instability.

The real historical turning point may therefore come when Venezuela stops asking its currency to solve problems that only economic transformation can resolve. A currency can stabilize prices; it cannot produce engineers. It can facilitate investment; it cannot build infrastructure. It can reduce uncertainty; it cannot replace institutions. It can create a stable unit of account; it cannot create a national strategy.

This is why the four trajectories established above should not be regarded as four completely separate destinies. They can follow one another or coexist. Official dollarization could be followed by productive reconstruction. Stabilization of the bolivar could evolve toward greater convertibility. A hybrid period could ultimately lead to an institutional decision. The determining factor will be the political capacity to transform a single decision into a coherent strategy.

Venezuela is thus entering a period in which monetary stability will no longer be the final destination but the starting point. The decisive question will be what the country does with that potential stability. If it uses it to rebuild productive capacity, educate its youth, reconnect with its diaspora, modernize its energy industry and enter the digital economy, the monetary rupture could become the beginning of a renaissance. If it treats stability as a sufficient solution, it risks becoming merely another interlude in a history of dependency.

The true deadline is therefore not only 2026. It is 2030, and then 2035. It is over this longer horizon that the historical significance of today’s decision will be measured. Venezuela is not simply choosing a currency; it is choosing the framework within which it will attempt to become once again an economic, energy, technological and regional power. And it is precisely this question that opens the next stage of our analysis: Venezuela 2035: What Kind of Power?

VENEZUELA 2035: WHAT KIND OF POWER IN A WORLD SHIFTING ITS CENTER OF GRAVITY?

Imagining Venezuela in 2035 does not mean mechanically extending the trends observed today. Such an approach would be inadequate for a country whose recent history has been marked by monetary, political, energy and social ruptures of exceptional magnitude. The relevant question, therefore, is not simply how much oil Venezuela will produce, what its currency exchange rate will be, or which government will be in power in a few years. The more demanding question is this: what form of power could a rebuilt Venezuela exercise within an international system that, by 2035, will likely be more fragmented, more digital, more competitive and increasingly organized around multiple centers of decision-making?

Answering that question first requires abandoning an older conception of power. For much of the twentieth century, a state’s power was primarily associated with its territory, population, natural resources, military strength, heavy industry and ability to control strategic flows. These elements remain important, but they are no longer sufficient. Contemporary power also depends on the ability to control digital infrastructure, data, critical technologies, logistics chains, financial systems, scientific capabilities and diplomatic networks. A relatively small country can exercise considerable influence if it controls a strategic technology or occupies an essential position within global value chains. Conversely, a country endowed with vast natural resources can remain vulnerable if it depends on technologies, capital and markets that it does not control.

Venezuela nevertheless possesses an advantage that few countries can replicate: an exceptional combination of energy resources, geographic position, agricultural potential, access to the Caribbean, proximity to North America and strategic territorial depth in South America. This combination does not yet constitute effective power, because a potential resource acquires geopolitical value only when a state possesses the institutional, financial and technological capabilities required to develop it. But it provides Venezuela with a foundation from which a strategy of national power could be rebuilt.

The first dimension of that power will remain energy. Oil will probably remain important beyond 2035, even in the context of the global energy transition. A rapid disappearance of global oil demand is not a sufficiently robust scenario on which to base national strategy. The structure of the energy market, however, could change profoundly. Producers capable of supplying competitive volumes, with controlled costs and high security of supply, will retain strategic importance. Venezuela could therefore benefit from a historic window in which to rebuild its energy capacity, but that window will not remain open indefinitely.

The real question will be whether the country can transform its oil resources into transition capital. A sophisticated strategy would use energy revenues to finance infrastructure, universities, the digitalization of the economy, industrial diversification, transportation and new energy capabilities. Oil would then cease to be the permanent center of the economic model and become instead a means of financing the transition toward a more diversified one. Such a transformation would probably rank among the most consequential decisions of the decade.

The second dimension will be geographic. Venezuela occupies a distinctive position between South America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic. That position could become considerably more important in a world in which supply-chain security, proximity to markets and the diversification of trade routes are gaining strategic significance. The Caribbean coast could be developed as a logistics and industrial platform linking South American, Caribbean, North American and European markets. Ports, road corridors, energy infrastructure and telecommunications could progressively transform this geography into an economic advantage.

Such a strategy would nevertheless require a profound transformation in Venezuela’s relationship with its neighbors. Regional power is not built through size or resources alone. It is also built through trust. Venezuela will therefore need to develop a far more predictable economic diplomacy, particularly with Colombia, Brazil, Caribbean countries and North American partners. Stable borders, fluid trade and energy cooperation could become far more effective instruments of national influence than ideological confrontation.

Colombia will occupy a particularly important place in this architecture. The border between the two countries is not merely a political line; it crosses a deeply interconnected human, commercial and economic space. A lasting improvement in bilateral relations could enable the development of trade, energy and logistics corridors capable of benefiting both economies. Venezuela could thus transform a border historically marked by tensions into a strategic development infrastructure.

Brazil represents another essential dimension. Geographic proximity, the size of the Brazilian market, energy and agricultural complementarities, and Brasília’s political weight in South America make Brazil an indispensable partner. A long-term Venezuelan strategy should therefore seek to build a relationship with Brazil based on economic interests and regional stability rather than temporary ideological convergence. Venezuela could thereby participate in a new South American architecture in which the region’s major states seek greater coordination of infrastructure, markets and energy policies.

The third dimension of power will be financial. This is where the question of dollarization regains its full significance. A Venezuela that uses the dollar extensively could benefit from deeper integration with international financial markets, provided that institutions are reformed and legal confidence restored. But dependence on a foreign currency should not automatically be equated with absolute weakness. The real question would be whether the country possesses sufficient domestic financial capabilities to mobilize international capital on favorable terms.

Rebuilding a credible financial system will therefore be indispensable. Banks must be able to operate within a stable environment, contracts must be enforceable, property rights must be adequately protected, and investors must have long-term visibility. Without these conditions, even a stable currency will not be enough to transform natural resources into sustainable investment. International capital is mobile; it flows toward environments in which risk is compatible with expected returns.

The fourth dimension will be technological. This is probably the dimension that will most profoundly determine the difference between a Venezuela that is merely stabilized and one that is genuinely transformed. An economy can rebuild its physical infrastructure without closing its technological gap. And the technological divide between several major powers and much of the Global South could widen further as artificial intelligence accelerates. Venezuela must therefore avoid a strategy based solely on importing technology. It will need to develop a national capacity to understand, adapt, use and, in selected priority sectors, produce critical technologies.

This does not require Venezuela to become a global artificial intelligence power. Such an ambition would be unrealistic. It requires instead selecting areas in which AI can generate significant gains for the national economy. Energy, agriculture, water management, healthcare, transportation, public administration, education, infrastructure security and natural-disaster management could become priority sectors. Venezuela could thus transform its technological lag into an opportunity by adopting certain technologies more rapidly than older institutional systems.

The fifth dimension will be human. No project of national power can function without human capital. Venezuela must therefore make education a national infrastructure as important as roads, ports or electricity networks. Scientific training, mathematics, engineering, medicine, computer science, cybersecurity, economics and technical skills will require substantial investment. The challenge will not simply be to train new talent, but also to bring back some of the expertise that has become dispersed across the world.

The diaspora could therefore become one of Venezuela’s most important strategic assets. For years, emigration was viewed primarily as a consequence of the crisis. By 2035, it could instead be reimagined as a global network of expertise, investment and relationships. A Venezuela capable of creating credible mechanisms to reconnect with its diaspora could benefit from a particularly valuable form of transnational capital. Venezuelan scientists, physicians, engineers, entrepreneurs and professionals living abroad could contribute to research, investment, training and technology-transfer programs without necessarily having to return permanently to the country.

The sixth dimension will be diplomatic. Venezuela will probably have to learn to practice a policy of pragmatic multi-alignment, adapted to a world in which no single power dominates every field. The United States will retain considerable strength in financial, military, technological and cultural domains. China will remain a major actor in industry, infrastructure, trade and certain strategic technologies. India will continue expanding its demographic, technological and economic weight. Europe will remain a major regulatory, financial and technological center. Brazil and other regional powers will seek to strengthen their strategic autonomy.

In such an environment, Venezuela would benefit from avoiding exclusive dependencies. Its energy position could give it significant negotiating leverage if it is able to sell to multiple markets and maintain sufficiently stable diplomatic relations to prevent its energy sector from becoming entirely dependent on a single partner. Diversification of partnerships would then become a form of sovereignty.

This strategy would also have an ideological dimension. Venezuela will probably need to move gradually beyond the binary categories that have structured much of its recent political discourse. The question will no longer be whether the country belongs to the American, Chinese, Russian or another camp. The question will be which partnerships concretely serve its national interests. This approach would not imply abandoning the country’s political values. It would simply mean that foreign policy should be conceived as an instrument of development rather than as a permanent extension of ideological conflicts.

The relative retreat of certain major international architectures also creates an opportunity. The BRICS have provided an important platform for several emerging economies, but their capacity to become a genuine economic system alternative to the dollar-dominated model remains uncertain. Differences in interests among their members are substantial, and several of these states simultaneously maintain close relationships with the United States and its allies. Venezuela should therefore not base its strategy on the assumption of a collapse of the dollar-dominated financial system. It should prepare for several possible configurations.

The same caution should apply to the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese infrastructure investment has profoundly transformed parts of the world, but outcomes vary according to countries, projects and financing conditions. Venezuela could seek cooperation with China in selected sectors without turning that cooperation into structural dependence. The objective should be to mobilize foreign investment in order to build durable national capabilities.

India and South Korea offer, in this respect, interesting examples of different trajectories. India has developed considerable technological capabilities while maintaining a relatively autonomous foreign policy. South Korea transformed what was once a poor economy into an industrial and technological power through a combination of education, industrial policy, private investment and international integration. Venezuela obviously cannot reproduce these models identically. But it can draw one essential lesson from them: natural resources become sustainable power only when they are transformed into human, industrial and technological capital.

This observation brings the dossier back to its original question. The crisis of the bolivar is not simply a currency crisis. It reveals the difficulty of an economic model in adapting to a world in which the sources of power have multiplied. Oil remains important, but it is no longer sufficient. Territory remains important, but it no longer guarantees power. Currency remains important, but it no longer constitutes sovereignty by itself. Institutions, data, skills, digital infrastructure, logistics networks and the capacity to innovate have become essential components of national power.

By 2035, a rebuilt Venezuela could exercise significant regional influence without becoming a superpower. It could become an energy, logistics, agricultural, digital and diplomatic power in the Caribbean and South American space. Such an ambition would be more realistic and strategic than the pursuit of greatness through confrontation.

But this trajectory will only be possible if the country accepts a difficult truth: twenty-first-century power is built slowly. It does not result from a decree, an election, a monetary reform or a temporary increase in oil prices. It is built through accumulation. A high-performing university today produces engineers ten years from now. A credible institutional reform today attracts investment tomorrow. Digital infrastructure built today can become an economic platform for decades. A coherent education policy can transform an entire generation.

Venezuela in 2035 will therefore be determined less by the spectacular decisions of 2026 than by its ability to maintain a coherent trajectory over the next decade. That is why the succession of governments matters less than strategic continuity. A national reconstruction cannot start from zero with every political transition. Infrastructure, universities, economic institutions and technology policies require sufficient stability to produce their effects.

The country could then enter a new historical phase in which power would no longer be pursued primarily through confrontation with the outside world, but through the reconstruction of internal capabilities. Such an evolution would represent a major break with part of the political culture of the twentieth century. It would not mean abandoning sovereignty. It would propose a more demanding definition of it: to be sovereign is not merely to have the ability to say no; it is to possess enough capacity to have the ability to choose.

This distinction could become one of the fundamental principles of Venezuela’s reconstruction. A poor country may reject certain foreign proposals, but its negotiating capacity remains limited if it depends heavily on external actors. A productive, technologically capable, strategically energy-rich and institutionally credible country can negotiate with far greater freedom. True autonomy therefore comes less from isolation than from the ability to multiply one’s options.

By 2035, Venezuela could thus face two radically different images of itself. In the first, it would have returned as a more significant oil producer but would remain dependent on foreign technologies, capital and markets, with an economy still fragile and a population deeply marked by the consequences of the crisis. In the second, it would have used energy reconstruction as a lever to build a more diversified productive system, reconnect with its diaspora, modernize education, develop digital infrastructure and become a regional actor capable of engaging with multiple centers of power.

Between these two futures, the difference will not be determined by what lies beneath Venezuelan soil. It will be determined by institutions, political choices and the quality of human capital.

That is why 2035 should be regarded not as a distant date but as a strategic horizon. Venezuela has a relatively narrow window in which to convert its natural advantages into technological and productive advantages. The longer transformation is delayed, the higher the cost of reconstruction will become, and the greater the risk that the country will lose part of its talent to other economies.

The monetary question that opened our dossier therefore appears in a new light. The bolivar and the dollar ultimately represent only two possible instruments within a much broader transformation. The real challenge is to build an economy capable of operating with stability, a society capable of innovating, and a state capable of negotiating in a world where power relations are becoming increasingly complex.

Venezuela in 2035 will not be judged by the currency it chooses in 2026. It will be judged by the capabilities it manages to build from that decision. And it is from this question that we can now enter one of the most documentary sections of the dossier: the 100 indicators that will allow us to measure, with the greatest possible rigor, the actual state of Venezuela and the conditions for its transformation.

100 INDICATORS TO UNDERSTAND VENEZUELA: READING A COUNTRY BEYOND ITS CURRENCY

Understanding Venezuela requires moving beyond the fascination generated by large numbers and spectacular decisions. An economy cannot be reduced to its exchange rate, its level of oil production, or its inflation rate, just as a state cannot be assessed solely through the lens of its political institutions. National reality is shaped by a set of variables that reinforce, offset, or contradict one another. A currency may stabilize while productivity remains weak. Oil production may increase while infrastructure continues to deteriorate. Investment may return without immediately producing a proportional improvement in living conditions. Artificial intelligence may open new opportunities even as a large part of the population remains distant from the skills required to benefit from them. This is why this section proposes a framework built around one hundred indicators, not as a static statistical inventory, but as an analytical instrument for monitoring Venezuela’s transformation through 2030 and, beyond that, toward 2035.

I. CURRENCY AND FINANCIAL STABILITY

1. The bolivar’s exchange rate against the U.S. dollar: This remains one of the most visible gauges of economic confidence. Its trajectory makes it possible to observe the pressure on the national currency and the way economic actors perceive risk.

2. The gap between the official exchange rate and the rate actually used in the market: The wider this gap becomes, the more clearly it reveals the divergence between the formal monetary framework and economic reality.

3. The share of transactions conducted in U.S. dollars: This makes it possible to measure the actual degree of dollarization within the economy, regardless of the dollar’s legal status.

4. The share of bank deposits held in foreign currencies: This indicator measures the preference of households and businesses for assets denominated in foreign currencies.

5. Annual inflation: Inflation remains one of the essential indicators of monetary credibility and of institutions’ ability to preserve purchasing power.

6. Food inflation: This indicator has particular social importance because the most vulnerable households devote a large proportion of their income to essential goods.

7. Monthly inflation: A sustained decline in monthly inflation generally provides a faster signal of stabilization than the annual average.

8. Money supply: Changes in the amount of money in circulation make it possible to assess monetary conditions and the risks associated with inflationary financing.

9. International reserves: These determine, in part, the country’s ability to finance imports and absorb external shocks.

10. Liquid international reserves: The distinction between headline reserves and reserves that can actually be mobilized is essential to measuring the country’s real capacity for intervention.

II. PUBLIC FINANCES AND DEBT

11. Fiscal balance: The public deficit or surplus provides a measure of the sustainability of economic policy.

12. Primary deficit: This makes it possible to distinguish imbalances arising from current revenues and expenditures from those resulting from the burden of debt.

13. Total public debt: This indicator measures the financial legacy that any reconstruction strategy will have to absorb.

14. External debt: It shapes an important part of Venezuela’s relationship with creditors and international financial markets.

15. Annual debt service: The ability to meet debt payments is a fundamental condition for a durable return of confidence.

16. Public debt as a share of GDP: This measure makes it possible to compare the weight of debt with the productive capacity of the economy.

17. Oil revenues as a share of public revenues: The higher this proportion, the more exposed the public budget remains to fluctuations in energy markets.

18. Share of non-oil tax revenues: An increase in this indicator would represent a major sign of fiscal diversification.

19. Public expenditure devoted to investment: This indicator distinguishes operating expenditure from resources genuinely committed to reconstruction.

20. Budget transparency: The quality of publicly available information on revenues, expenditures, and debt is an institutional indicator every bit as important as the amounts themselves.

III. OIL AND ENERGY

21. Daily oil production: This is one of the most closely watched indicators of the productive capacity of the energy sector.

22. Annual oil production: It provides a broader measure of the sector’s overall contribution to the economy.

23. Proven oil reserves: Venezuela possesses an exceptional energy endowment, but the economic value of those reserves depends on the country’s ability to develop them.

24. Production relative to reserves: This ratio helps assess the degree to which the country’s energy potential is actually being exploited.

25. Production cost per barrel: The future competitiveness of the sector will depend heavily on this variable.

26. Available refining capacity: High crude-oil production does not guarantee energy autonomy if refining capacity remains inadequate.

27. Refinery utilization rate: This indicator measures the actual efficiency of the country’s industrial refining system.

28. Oil exports: They remain a fundamental source of foreign-currency revenues.

29. Foreign investment in the energy sector: Its evolution will provide an important signal of confidence in the regulatory and investment environment.

30. Share of oil revenues devoted to diversification: This is arguably one of the most strategically important indicators for preventing a return to the rentier model.

IV. THE REAL ECONOMY AND PRODUCTIVITY

31. Real GDP: It measures changes in economic output after adjusting for inflation.

32. GDP per capita: It provides an approximation of the average level of economic wealth available per person.

33. Annual GDP growth: Sustainable growth must be distinguished from a temporary rebound following a period of contraction.

34. Labor productivity: It is one of the fundamental indicators of an economy’s ability to increase incomes sustainably.

35. Industrial productivity: This measures the manufacturing sector’s ability to generate greater value from the same resources.

36. Manufacturing’s share of GDP: An increase would indicate diversification beyond oil.

37. Agriculture’s share of the economy: This indicator helps assess Venezuela’s ability to strengthen food security and develop a domestic productive base.

38. Domestic agricultural production: Its growth would reduce dependence on imported food.

39. Industrial capacity utilization: This measures how much of the country’s existing productive potential is actually being used.

40. Domestic private investment: Its trajectory is a direct indicator of entrepreneurs’ confidence in the country’s economic future.

V. TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION

41. Total exports: They measure the country’s capacity to sell goods and services to the rest of the world.

42. Non-oil exports: Their growth would be one of the clearest signs of economic diversification.

43. Imports of capital goods: An increase can signal productive reconstruction rather than simply higher consumption of imported goods.

44. Trade balance: This measures the relationship between exports and imports.

45. The share of the United States in Venezuela’s exports: This indicator measures the country’s degree of trade dependence on the U.S. market.

46. The share of China: This makes it possible to assess the importance of the China-Venezuela economic relationship.

47. The share of India: Its evolution could become particularly significant in the energy sector.

48. The share of Brazil and Colombia: This would help measure Venezuela’s degree of economic integration with South America.

49. Foreign direct investment: Its growth would represent a major signal of Venezuela’s return to the global economy.

50. Geographic diversification of trade: A country capable of trading with several major markets generally possesses greater strategic room for maneuver.

VI. POPULATION, EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIETY

51. Total population: It constitutes the demographic foundation of future productive capacity.

52. Share of the working-age population: This indicator measures the potential size of the labor force.

53. Unemployment rate: It remains a fundamental indicator of economic integration and access to employment.

54. Informal employment: High informality constrains tax revenues, social protection, and productivity.

55. Real wages: This measures purchasing power independently of nominal inflation.

56. Poverty rate: It is a fundamental indicator of the social dimension of reconstruction.

57. Income inequality: Growth cannot be considered sustainable if its benefits remain heavily concentrated.

58. External migration: This measures the scale of human-capital loss while also reflecting the existence of a global network that could contribute to reconstruction.

59. Diaspora remittances: Their evolution could become an important source of household financing and investment.

60. Return of skilled professionals: The number and profile of professionals returning to the country will provide a particularly important indicator of restored confidence.

VII. EDUCATION AND HUMAN CAPITAL

61. School enrollment rate: This measures access to education.

62. School completion rate: It distinguishes enrollment from the successful completion of an educational pathway.

63. Access to higher education: This is an indicator of the country’s potential to develop advanced skills.

64. Graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: Their growth will be critical to technological transformation.

65. Public expenditure on education: Its evolution reveals the importance assigned to human capital within the national strategy.

66. Research and development expenditure: This is one of the most revealing indicators of future innovation capacity.

67. Number of researchers: It measures the depth and strength of the national scientific system.

68. Patents filed: Their growth can serve as an approximate indicator of formalized innovation.

69. International university partnerships: They will help reconnect Venezuela with global knowledge networks.

70. Digital training programs: Their development will be essential to preparing the population for an economy increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

VIII. TECHNOLOGY, DIGITALIZATION AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

71. Internet access rate: Internet connectivity has become a fundamental development infrastructure.

72. Quality and average connection speed: Access alone is not enough; network quality determines the population’s actual ability to use digital services.

73. Mobile coverage: This measures basic access to digital communications.

74. Available data centers: Their development will become an indicator of digital sovereignty.

75. National computing capacity: This will become increasingly important for research and artificial-intelligence applications.

76. AI adoption by businesses: This will make it possible to measure the actual transformation of the productive sector.

77. Use of AI in public services: This indicator will help assess the modernization of government administration.

78. Professional training in AI: It will measure the country’s ability to transform imported technology into domestic capabilities.

79. Technology startups: Their number, financing, and export capacity may become indicators of economic diversification.

80. International technology investment: This will help measure Venezuela’s attractiveness within the emerging global digital economy.

IX. INFRASTRUCTURE AND CONNECTIVITY

81. Electricity availability: Without reliable energy, no lasting industrial or digital transformation is possible.

82. Electricity-grid losses: Reducing them would provide a direct indicator of infrastructure modernization.

83. Non-oil energy-generation capacity: This will measure the diversification of the national energy system.

84. Road-network quality: It determines the movement of goods and the integration of the national territory.

85. Port capacity: It will be essential if Venezuela is to turn its geographic position into a logistical advantage.

86. Airport capacity: This will help measure the country’s reintegration into international networks.

87. Telecommunications infrastructure: Its modernization will be indispensable to digital transformation.

88. Access to safe drinking water. This indicator underscores the fact that economic modernization cannot be separated from fundamental living conditions.

89. Housing and urbanization: The quality of urban development will be an indicator of social cohesion.

90. Annual infrastructure investment: Its volume, and above all its effectiveness, will determine the country’s real reconstruction capacity.

X. GOVERNANCE, SOVEREIGNTY AND POWER

91. Institutional quality: This constitutes the invisible foundation of all other transformations.

92. Independence and credibility of economic institutions: Confidence in the central bank, the financial system, and statistical authorities will be essential.

93. Rule of law: Investors and citizens alike must be able to rely on predictable rules.

94. Perceived and measured levels of corruption: Reducing corruption is an important condition for the effectiveness of both public and private investment.

95. Economic freedom and legal certainty: These two variables will determine the country’s ability to attract and retain capital.

96. Diversification of international partnerships: This will measure Venezuela’s ability to avoid exclusive dependencies.

97. Regional diplomatic influence: This will help measure the conversion of economic capacity into political influence.

98. Defense capability and national security: These will remain components of sovereignty, but they must be incorporated into a broader conception of national security.

99. National resilience: This cross-cutting indicator should encompass the country’s ability to absorb economic, energy, climate, health, technological, and geopolitical shocks.

100. Global National Capacity Index: The final indicator should not be understood as a single official statistical figure, but as an analytical instrument combining monetary stability, productive capacity, human capital, technology, infrastructure, institutions, energy, and diplomacy. Its purpose is to answer the fundamental question at the heart of this dossier: does Venezuela genuinely possess the capabilities required to choose its future rather than merely react to events?

This framework of one hundred indicators makes clear why the question of the bolivar cannot be isolated from the rest of the economy. The exchange rate appears at the beginning of our framework, but it is only one variable among one hundred. A currency can stabilize without productivity improving. Oil production can rise without diversification advancing. Investment can return without institutions becoming sufficiently strong. Internet access can improve without the population acquiring the skills required to harness artificial intelligence. GDP can grow while inequality remains high. Serious analysis of Venezuela must therefore examine several indicators simultaneously.

This is also what makes the period from 2026 to 2035 so decisive. Venezuela will not be judged solely on its ability to emerge from monetary crisis. It will increasingly face a broader competition among economies capable of transforming resources into technology, technology into productivity, and productivity into prosperity. Within this new global hierarchy, oil ownership will remain an advantage, but it will no longer be sufficient to guarantee a dominant position.

The true measure of success will therefore gradually shift. The question will no longer be only how many barrels Venezuela produces, how many dollars it holds, or what rate of growth it records. It will also be necessary to ask how many engineers it trains, how many companies export, how many technologies are developed domestically, how many young people remain in the country because they see a future there, how many investors consider its institutions reliable enough to commit capital for ten or fifteen years, and, above all, how many strategic decisions Venezuela can make without immediately being constrained by external dependence.

At this level, all one hundred indicators converge toward the same conclusion. Venezuela’s power will not be determined by any single indicator, but by the coherence of its national system. That coherence must now be assessed over the long term. Today’s figures will establish the starting point; those of 2030 will measure the transformation; and those of 2035 will determine whether that transformation has genuinely produced a new national trajectory.

STRATEGIC CHRONOLOGY OF VENEZUELA: FROM PETROLEUM POWER TO THE RECOMPOSITION OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Contemporary Venezuela cannot be understood as a succession of isolated crises. It must be read as a long transformation in the relationship between natural resources, institutions, currency, society, and international power. The current monetary crisis did not emerge suddenly, nor can it be attributed to a single political decision. It is the result of a much longer history, during which oil progressively transformed the country’s economic structure, while institutions, productive diversification, and human capital did not always evolve at the same pace. Reconstructing this chronology makes it possible to understand why the current dollar question extends far beyond monetary policy and why the 2026 debate is taking place at a moment when Venezuela must simultaneously rebuild its economy, redefine its alliances, and adapt to a new global economy.

1. ENTRY INTO THE OIL ERA: WHEN THE SUBSOIL BECOMES THE ECONOMIC DESTINY

Venezuela at the beginning of the 20th century remained primarily an agricultural, poor, and relatively peripheral economy within the international system. The discovery and large-scale exploitation of oil progressively transformed this situation. Energy revenues enabled the State to accumulate considerable resources, invest in infrastructure, rapidly urbanize the country, and profoundly transform its social structure. Oil did not simply become an industry; it became one of the principal architectures of the modern Venezuelan State.

This transformation nevertheless created a lasting contradiction. The more important oil became to external revenues, the less urgent economic diversification appeared to be. Oil income made it possible to import goods, finance public expenditure, and sustain consumption without the domestic productive apparatus having to advance at the same pace. Oil success thus produced wealth and dependence simultaneously. This contradiction would become one of the central threads running through the country’s entire economic history.

2. 1958–1976: DEMOCRACY, MODERNIZATION, AND THE ASSERTION OF ENERGY SOVEREIGNTY

The fall of Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958 opened a new political period marked by the establishment of a democratic system that, despite its imperfections, would become one of the most enduring in Latin America. The new political architecture accompanied a period of economic and social modernization. Oil remained central, but the State also sought to develop infrastructure, education, and industrial capabilities.

The nationalization of the oil industry in 1976 therefore represented a decisive turning point. The creation of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., PDVSA, reflected a conception of energy sovereignty in which the State sought to exercise direct control over a resource considered strategic. At the time, this conception formed part of a much broader international trend toward the nationalization of natural resources in producing countries. Venezuela was thus seeking to transform its underground wealth into an instrument of national sovereignty.

Yet this achievement already contained an ambiguity. Energy sovereignty was being consolidated while economic diversification remained incomplete. The State had greater control over the resource, but the economy continued to depend heavily on oil revenues. The problem had not yet emerged as a crisis; it was already embedded in the structure of the model itself.

3. THE 1970s–1980s: THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE AND THE ILLUSION OF PERMANENT WEALTH

The oil shocks of the 1970s substantially increased Venezuela’s revenues. The State possessed resources that appeared to confirm the idea that oil income could finance national modernization on a lasting basis. Public expenditure increased, infrastructure expanded, and the economy benefited from strong income flows.

This period fostered a particular conception of development: that of a State wealthy enough to finance consumption, infrastructure, and social policies simultaneously through energy revenues. The problem was that oil volatility remained structural. An economy whose revenues depend heavily on a commodity priced on global markets remains exposed to shocks it cannot control.

As oil prices began to decline, the model progressively revealed its vulnerabilities. Debt increased, fiscal imbalances accumulated, and confidence in the State’s ability to maintain the same level of expenditure indefinitely began to erode.

4. 1983: “BLACK FRIDAY” AND THE FIRST GREAT MONETARY BREAK

February 18, 1983, known as “Black Friday,” became one of the principal symbols marking the end of the illusion of permanent monetary stability. The bolívar, long regarded as one of the region’s strongest currencies, suffered a major devaluation, and the country adopted exchange controls.

The event is historically important because it demonstrated that oil power does not automatically protect a currency. Monetary stability also depends on fiscal discipline, reserves, the productive structure, and confidence in institutions. Venezuela consequently entered a period in which exchange-rate and debt issues progressively acquired a central place in economic life.

“Black Friday” should therefore be regarded as an early warning. The crisis of 2026 is not the first time the country has confronted the limits of its monetary architecture. Rather, it represents the culmination of a process whose first major fractures were already visible decades earlier.

5. THE 1980s–1990s: DEBT, ADJUSTMENT, AND THE CRISIS OF THE MODEL

The 1980s were marked by the consequences of declining oil revenues, indebtedness, and economic imbalances. Adjustment policies progressively became unavoidable. Yet they were socially costly and politically difficult to sustain.

Venezuela thus entered a period of tension between two imperatives. On the one hand, the economy demanded greater discipline, diversification, and reform. On the other, society retained expectations accumulated over several decades of oil wealth. The State therefore had to manage a contradiction between the need to reduce certain mechanisms of redistribution and the need to preserve social cohesion.

This tension reached a critical level at the end of the 1980s. The “Caracazo” of 1989 became the symbol of a profound social and political crisis. The event demonstrated that economic problems cannot be separated from political legitimacy. An economic reform may be technically coherent and politically explosive when a significant part of the population believes it is bearing the cost of adjustment alone.

6. 1992–1998: POLITICAL CRISIS AND THE END OF A CYCLE

The attempted coups of 1992 demonstrated the extent to which the political system had entered a period of profound fragility. Although they failed, they contributed to a lasting transformation of the national political imagination. Hugo Chávez progressively emerged as a central figure in this challenge to the established order.

Chávez’s election in 1998 therefore marked a historic rupture. His arrival in power cannot be understood solely as the result of a political campaign. It was also the consequence of a long accumulation of social frustrations, institutional disillusionment, and criticism of the economic model.

Venezuela thus entered a new period in which oil revenues would be used not only as an economic resource, but also as an instrument of a much broader political and ideological project.

7. 1999–2002: A NEW CONSTITUTION AND A NEW CONCEPTION OF THE STATE

The 1999 Constitution profoundly transformed the country’s institutional architecture. Venezuela officially became the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The change in terminology expressed a determination to break with the previous political order.

The Chávez project combined social redistribution, greater State intervention, energy sovereignty, and institutional transformation. When oil revenues subsequently increased substantially, the government had the resources required to finance large-scale social programs.

Oil therefore became, more than ever, the engine of political transformation. But the dependence it created did not disappear. When oil revenues increased, structural imbalances could be concealed by abundance. When revenues declined, those imbalances returned with greater intensity.

8. 2003–2008: THE GOLDEN AGE OF OIL AND THE EXPANSION OF THE SOCIAL STATE

The substantial rise in oil prices during the 2000s gave the Chávez government exceptional financial room for maneuver. Social programs expanded, public expenditure increased, and the role of the State in the economy became stronger.

This period helped reduce certain forms of poverty and expand access to particular services. But it also deepened dependence on oil revenues. The economic model became progressively more vulnerable to a possible reversal of the energy cycle.

The 2008 monetary reform, which introduced the strong bolívar by removing three zeros from the currency, constituted another important signal. A redenomination can simplify transactions and improve accounting clarity, but it cannot resolve the structural causes of inflation. When fundamental imbalances persist, changing nominal units does not change economic reality.

9. 2009–2012: THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS REVEALS THE LIMITS OF THE MODEL

The international financial crisis of 2008–2009 caused oil prices to fall and abruptly reminded Venezuela of its external vulnerability. The country could still mobilize significant resources, but the period of absolute abundance had ended.

This phase is important because it demonstrates that the issue is not limited to the level of oil prices. It concerns the country’s ability to absorb energy cycles without destabilizing its economy. A State may possess substantial reserves and still remain vulnerable if its budget, imports, social expenditure, and external balance depend heavily on a single source of revenue.

10. 2013: POLITICAL SUCCESSION AND A CHANGE OF CYCLE

The death of Hugo Chávez in 2013 opened a new period. Nicolás Maduro succeeded him in a much less favorable economic environment. Growth slowed, political tensions increased, and oil dependence became more difficult to manage.

The situation deteriorated further when international oil prices collapsed beginning in 2014. Venezuela then entered an economic crisis of exceptional depth. The fall in oil revenues did not produce merely a fiscal shock; it exposed the accumulated weaknesses of the preceding decades.

11. 2014–2016: THE OIL SHOCK BECOMES A SYSTEMIC CRISIS

The decline in oil prices substantially reduced external revenues. Imports fell, domestic production contracted, and pressure on public finances intensified. The State had fewer foreign-exchange resources with which to finance an economy that remained heavily dependent on imports.

The monetary problem worsened. The depreciation of the bolívar accelerated inflation, while exchange controls became increasingly difficult to maintain. An economy can operate with temporary controls; it becomes much more vulnerable when those controls are used permanently to compensate for a structural shortage of foreign currency.

12. 2017–2018: HYPERINFLATION AND THE BREAKDOWN OF MONETARY FUNCTION

Beginning in 2017, the monetary crisis reached a new dimension. Venezuela entered a period of hyperinflation that progressively destroyed the bolívar’s capacity to function as a store of value.

The crisis was no longer simply an exchange-rate crisis. It affected the very function of money. When prices change with extreme speed, companies struggle to establish costs, households seek to protect their income, and contracts become difficult to establish in a stable unit of account.

The 2018 reform introduced the sovereign bolívar and removed five zeros from the currency. As in 2008, the operation simplified nominal figures but did not restore confidence. A currency can change its name and scale; it cannot regain credibility without transforming the economic mechanisms that determine its value.

13. 2019: THE DOLLAR PROGRESSIVELY ENTERS EVERYDAY ECONOMIC LIFE

The year 2019 marked a new stage in Venezuela’s monetary transformation. As the bolívar collapsed, the use of the dollar expanded throughout the private economy. Foreign-currency transactions became increasingly common, and the U.S. currency progressively assumed functions that the national currency was no longer adequately performing.

The dollarization that developed at that time was not initially the result of legislation. It was the product of social adaptation. Economic agents sought the currency they considered more stable. This distinction between imposed dollarization and spontaneous dollarization is fundamental to understanding the current situation.

14. 2020–2021: PANDEMIC, CRISIS, AND THE THIRD MONETARY TRANSFORMATION

The COVID-19 pandemic struck an economy that was already severely weakened. Difficulties in the energy sector, fragile infrastructure, and financial restrictions limited the country’s ability to respond.

In 2021, Venezuela carried out another monetary reform with the introduction of the digital bolívar and the removal of six zeros. The nominal change was substantial, but once again illustrated the same problem: a monetary reform can only be sustainable if it is accompanied by sufficiently deep macroeconomic stabilization.

The country consequently entered a paradoxical situation. The bolívar remained the official currency, while the dollar played an increasingly important role in private transactions. Law and practice were therefore beginning to diverge structurally.

15. 2022–2023: RELATIVE STABILIZATION AND DE FACTO DOLLARIZATION

After the most acute years of hyperinflation, certain economic conditions began to improve. Oil production partially recovered, some economic restrictions were eased, and the use of the dollar became even more firmly established in the private economy.

This period is important because it demonstrates that dollarization can exist without an official decision. The market can produce a form of monetary plurality in which the dollar becomes a reference unit while the bolívar continues to be used for certain domestic obligations.

The phenomenon consequently changed in nature. It was no longer merely a temporary response to a crisis. It progressively became a structural component of the economy.

16. 2024–2025: THE MONETARY QUESTION BECOMES A GEOPOLITICAL QUESTION

Beginning in 2024, the Venezuelan question extended even further beyond the boundaries of economics. Relations with the United States, sanctions, energy policy, elections, and relations with China, Russia, Iran, and regional partners increasingly became interconnected.

Oil once again became the meeting point between economics and geopolitics. For Washington, Caracas simultaneously represents an energy, migration, political, and strategic issue. For Beijing, Venezuela remains an important energy and financial partner. For Moscow, it represents a political foothold in the Western Hemisphere. For neighboring countries, Venezuela’s stability directly affects migration, trade, security, and borders.

Venezuela thus ceased to be merely a national crisis. It became a node within the restructuring of the international system.

17. 2026: THE POTENTIAL BREAK

The year 2026 represents the convergence point of several transformations. The debate over possible full dollarization has acquired a new dimension following the involvement of Steve Hanke as an adviser to the National Assembly. Fortune reports that he is working on legislative proposals aimed at replacing the bolívar with the dollar and that he personally estimates the probability of adoption at between 50% and 80%. These figures represent his personal assessment and do not constitute an independent institutional forecast.

The economic situation nevertheless remains extremely fragile. Fortune reports annual inflation approaching 400% according to calculations cited from Hanke and describes an economy in which the dollar is already widely used in private transactions. The same source places Venezuelan debt at approximately $250 billion, or roughly 150% of GDP according to the figures presented in its analysis. These estimates should be treated as figures attributed to Fortune and Hanke, rather than incontrovertible values independently verified by all international institutions.

The historical importance of 2026 therefore lies less in a decision that has already been taken than in the fact that abandoning the bolívar is now being discussed as a credible institutional possibility. The debate has crossed a threshold. The question is no longer simply how to stabilize the bolívar; it is whether Venezuela should preserve formal monetary sovereignty or accept a monetary architecture in which stability is pursued through a foreign currency.

18. 2026–2030: THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD

If a profound monetary reform were adopted, it could only constitute a first stage. The reconstruction of the oil sector, debt restructuring, modernization of the electricity grid, recovery of the banking system, strengthening of legal certainty, and gradual return of investment would be the real tests of the new trajectory.

Fortune reports that proponents of dollarization regard increased oil production as one mechanism capable of generating the foreign currency required to restructure Venezuelan debt. This hypothesis is coherent from an accounting perspective, but it presupposes a profound improvement in the productive apparatus and investment framework. Dollarization would not automatically produce these outcomes; it could only modify the conditions under which efforts to achieve them would take place.

The 2026–2030 period should therefore be regarded as a transition stage. Success cannot be measured solely through inflation or the exchange rate. It must also be assessed through production, employment, productivity, investment, non-oil exports, education, technology, and institutional quality.

19. 2030–2035: FROM STABILIZATION TO POWER

If reconstruction succeeds, Venezuela could enter a second phase beginning around 2030. The objective would no longer be merely to emerge from crisis, but to build a new international position.

The country could use its energy resources, its Caribbean coastline, its proximity to major U.S. and South American markets, and its human potential to become a regional power specializing in energy, logistics, selected industrial sectors, and the digital economy.

But this future is not guaranteed. It will depend on the country’s ability to transform oil revenues into human and technological capital rather than once again turning them into a source of rent dependence.

20. THE TRUE MEANING OF THE CHRONOLOGY

This chronology ultimately reveals a deeper continuity beneath successive political ruptures. Since the development of the oil industry, Venezuela has repeatedly attempted to resolve structural problems through an exceptional resource. Oil financed modernization; it also delayed certain transformations. It helped build the modern State; it also made the economy vulnerable to global cycles. It gave the country considerable international influence; it also created a dependence that became especially dangerous when revenues declined.

The current monetary crisis therefore represents the outcome of a long tension between potential wealth and institutional capacity. Venezuela has never lacked natural resources commensurate with its potential. What it has lacked, at different moments, is the capacity to convert those resources sustainably into productivity, strong institutions, human capital, and economic diversification.

This contradiction explains why the dollar question now acquires an almost civilizational dimension. The debate is no longer simply between a national currency and a foreign currency. It confronts two conceptions of sovereignty. The first holds that independence requires retaining national instruments, even when their effectiveness has become severely limited. The second holds that sovereignty should be measured by a nation’s real capacity to protect its citizens, produce, negotiate, and prepare for the future.

Venezuela’s history demonstrates that these two dimensions are not necessarily contradictory. Monetary sovereignty can be a useful instrument when it rests on credible institutions. It can become a burden when the national currency ceases to perform its fundamental functions. The 21st-century question is therefore not about defending one symbol against another, but about determining which institutions will genuinely enable Venezuela to regain control over its decisions.

The chronology thus leads to a fundamental conclusion: Venezuela is not simply approaching the end of a monetary cycle; potentially, it is approaching the end of a historical cycle.

The cycle based on rent, the absolute centrality of oil, a conception of sovereignty focused primarily on control of resources, and the ideological confrontations of the 20th century is reaching its limits. The next cycle will have to be built on stability, productivity, technology, human capital, diversification, and a diplomacy capable of operating among multiple centers of power. This transition will neither be automatic nor rapid. But precisely because it is difficult, it constitutes the true challenge of 2026.

Venezuela must not merely seek to emerge from its old crisis. It must emerge from the old mental model that made some of those crises possible. The next section will broaden this perspective by comparing Venezuela with other Latin American trajectories to determine whether its current transformation represents an exception, a return to an older regional dynamic, or a laboratory for an evolution that could affect other economies of the Global South.

VENEZUELA IN THE NEW ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF DONALD TRUMP

The Venezuelan question can no longer be studied as a strictly Latin American matter. It must now be situated within a much broader restructuring of the global economic and geopolitical order. The possible decision to abandon the bolívar is unfolding at a moment when the United States is redefining its instruments of power, trade chains are under renewed pressure, economic sanctions are being used as instruments of foreign policy, energy is regaining a strategic dimension, China is seeking to reduce certain dependencies while consolidating its markets, India is asserting growing strategic autonomy, and part of the Global South is attempting to navigate among several centers of power without becoming trapped in the old logic of alignment. Venezuela therefore finds itself at the intersection of several transformations that, considered separately, might appear independent, but which together are profoundly changing the geopolitical value of its territory, its oil, its currency, and its foreign relations.

Here it is necessary to distinguish between two temporalities. The first is that of the Venezuelan crisis, which began long before 2026 and is deeply connected to the country’s internal transformations. The second is that of the international restructuring accelerating in the middle of the 2020s. The encounter between these two temporalities creates an exceptional situation. Venezuela is attempting to abandon an exhausted economic model precisely when the international system into which it must reintegrate is itself changing. This simultaneity represents both a risk and an opportunity. The risk is evident: an institutionally fragile country may struggle to navigate a period of intensifying international competition. The opportunity is less obvious: when an old order changes, established positions cease to be completely fixed, and some states can rebuild their importance on the basis of strategic resources.

The Yahoo Finance article of August 22, 2026, which revisits Fortune’s analysis, presents precisely Steve Hanke’s proposal as a possible historic rupture. Hanke considers comprehensive dollar adoption, involving the abandonment of the bolívar and the monetary role of the Central Bank of Venezuela, to be the most significant national currency change since the introduction of the euro, while personally estimating the probability that his proposal will be adopted at between 50% and 80%. However, an essential journalistic distinction must be maintained: this is a proposal and an assessment by its principal advocate, not a decision already adopted by the Venezuelan State.

This caution is not a secondary precaution. It is indispensable to understanding the true dimension of the development. Serious international analysis must not transform a political proposal into an accomplished fact. What can already be observed, however, is the existence of substantial spontaneous dollarization within the economy. According to Hanke, as cited by Fortune, a large share of private transactions is already conducted in dollars, while public employees, pensioners, and certain recipients of government transfers remain more closely tied to the bolívar. This coexistence between the official currency and the currency actually used reveals a deeper transformation: Venezuelan society has begun to modify the country’s monetary geography on its own, even before a definitive institutional decision has been made.

This is precisely where the Venezuelan question connects with the new geography of American power. For much of the 20th century, Washington regarded Latin America as a zone of particular strategic influence. But the 21st century has changed the nature of this relationship. China has become an important trading partner for numerous Latin American countries, Russia seeks areas of influence, Iran has developed certain economic and political relationships in the region, while Latin American governments generally seek to maximize their autonomy rather than accept a simple hierarchy. The region is therefore no longer a space in which a single power can easily define the rules of the game.

Venezuela also possesses a particular characteristic: its oil immediately transforms its situation into an international issue. A country with Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves cannot be treated like an ordinary peripheral economy. The capacity to increase production, modernize infrastructure, attract capital, and restore exports could have consequences for energy markets, capital flows, and relations between Washington and Caracas. Fortune reports that Hanke considers the reconstruction of the oil sector precisely as one of the conditions capable of generating the foreign currency required to address Venezuelan debt, which he estimates at around $250 billion. These figures and this strategy correspond to Hanke’s analysis as reported by Fortune and should be presented as such.

The logic therefore becomes circular. Monetary stability could encourage investment; investment could enable the recovery of energy production; increased production could generate greater foreign-currency revenues; those revenues could facilitate financial restructuring; restructuring could strengthen confidence; and that confidence could once again accelerate investment. But the same mechanism can operate in reverse. If monetary reform fails, if institutions remain weak, if infrastructure is not restored, or if investors consider political risk too high, dollarization could stabilize certain prices without producing the expected productive transformation.

For this reason, reducing the debate to the formula “dollar versus bolívar” would be an analytical mistake. The real issue is the triangle of currency, energy, and geopolitics. Venezuela is not merely seeking a new monetary unit; potentially, it is seeking a new framework for rebuilding its economy and renegotiating its international position. The dollar could become the monetary instrument of that reconstruction, but success would depend on everything surrounding it.

Donald Trump’s trade policy adds another dimension to this question. U.S. tariff policy toward China has contributed to shifting the global economic debate away from an exclusive focus on free trade toward a framework in which supply-chain security, industrial sovereignty, and technological competition occupy a central place. For countries possessing strategic resources, this transformation is significant. Raw materials are no longer simply exportable commodities; they can once again become instruments of negotiation within a global economy in which states seek to secure their supplies.

Venezuela could therefore find itself in a paradoxical position. For decades, its oil was regarded primarily as a source of revenue. In the new global political economy, it could once again become strategic infrastructure. The difference is fundamental. A resource is profitable when it generates income. It becomes strategic when it influences the decisions of major powers.

This evolution must also be considered in relation to U.S. policy toward Iran. The conflict surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, the issue of sanctions, energy tensions, and Gulf security illustrate how closely energy remains tied to geopolitics. The digital world has not eliminated geography. It has transformed it. States now simultaneously require chips, data, networks, oil, gas, critical minerals, ports, trade routes, and military capabilities. 21st-century power is not post-energy; it is hybrid.

This hybridization is essential to understanding Venezuela’s position. The country possesses an exceptional energy resource but remains significantly behind in several technological domains. It could therefore face a new form of dependency: selling primary resources while importing the technologies required to exploit them. Such a situation would reproduce, in a new form, the logic of 20th-century dependency.

The real objective should therefore be more ambitious. Oil reconstruction should simultaneously be used to develop national capabilities in engineering, industrial maintenance, digital systems, data analysis, automation, and artificial intelligence applied to energy. Such a policy would progressively transform oil into a technological learning platform rather than maintaining it simply as an export commodity.

China is an unavoidable case study here. Beijing remains an important partner for numerous commodity-producing countries, but China itself has spent years moving upward in technological value chains. Its objective is no longer simply to purchase resources abroad and sell manufactured products. It seeks to control a greater number of technologies, industrial capabilities, and logistics chains. Venezuela would benefit from observing this transformation closely: real power lies not merely in possessing resources, but in the ability to organize the entire economic chain that transforms them.

India represents another trajectory. It maintains an important relationship with oil and energy markets while developing its own digital, industrial, and scientific capabilities. Its foreign policy is based on strategic autonomy, allowing it to work with multiple partners without fully aligning with a single power. For Caracas, the Indian experience could be particularly instructive. It demonstrates that a country in the Global South can seek to diversify its relationships without necessarily falling into exclusive dependence.

South Korea offers another lesson. It does not possess Venezuela’s natural-resource reserves, but it has demonstrated how human capital, industry, technology, and infrastructure can radically transform a state’s international position. Venezuela obviously could not reproduce its historical trajectory, but it could recover its fundamental principle: a natural resource becomes a sustainable instrument of power only when it finances productive transformation.

Russia, for its part, illustrates the limits of a power heavily based on energy resources and military capability when geopolitical costs become extremely high. The war in Ukraine profoundly transformed Moscow’s relations with Europe, energy markets, and part of the international financial system. It also accelerated the search for new trade routes and new partners. For Venezuela, the Russian experience offers an important lesson: possessing energy resources can provide resilience, but it does not automatically guarantee a favorable international position when the geopolitical environment becomes hostile.

Russia’s relative weakening in certain areas does not, of course, mean its disappearance as a power. Rather, it demonstrates that modern power is multidimensional. A state can retain considerable military and energy influence while facing technological, financial, or demographic difficulties. This observation connects directly with the Venezuelan analysis: no country can indefinitely depend on a single dimension of power.

The BRICS question must be approached with the same caution. The group’s expansion has strengthened its international visibility, but it has not eliminated divergences of interest among its members. India and China are simultaneously partners and competitors. Several member states maintain important relationships with the United States and Europe. Some seek to reduce their exposure to the dollar without necessarily seeking to abandon the international financial system dominated by existing institutions. Venezuela should therefore not confuse the emergence of a more multipolar world with the immediate disappearance of American centrality.

This distinction is particularly important in the context of possible dollarization. It would be paradoxical for a country to adopt the dollar as a stabilization instrument while assuming that the dollar is about to immediately lose its central role. A serious strategy must distinguish between the trend toward greater international monetary diversification and the present reality of the financial system. The dollar remains one of the world’s principal currencies. Its centrality may gradually be challenged in certain areas without disappearing as a result.

Venezuela could therefore attempt to exploit an apparent contradiction: using the dollar to stabilize its economy while diversifying its commercial and technological partners. Such a strategy would be far more sophisticated than an ideological choice of one bloc over another. It would consist of using an international currency as an instrument of stability while maintaining a pluralistic foreign policy.

This approach could also reshape the relationship with Cuba. For decades, Cuba and Venezuela were linked by particularly close political and energy ties. But the region’s economic transformations could require a more pragmatic approach. Relations between Caracas and Havana could progressively be redefined around specific sectors such as health, education, biotechnology, vocational training, and selected commercial exchanges rather than being based exclusively on ideological solidarity.

Such an evolution would be significant. It would illustrate the transition from bloc diplomacy to functional diplomacy. In the 21st-century world, two countries can cooperate in one area while pursuing divergent interests in another. Diplomatic maturity consists precisely in knowing how to manage this plurality.

The same logic could apply to Colombia. Historical proximity, political tensions, and migration flows have long dominated the relationship. But geography imposes a reality that politics cannot eliminate. The two economies share borders, markets, infrastructure, and populations. Venezuelan reconstruction could therefore produce a significant regional effect if it enabled improved trade and cross-border infrastructure.

Brazil could play an even broader role. A strategic relationship with Brasília would allow Venezuela to strengthen its South American anchoring without depending exclusively on Washington or Beijing. Brazil possesses particular diplomatic capacity because it can engage with multiple international poles. Caracas would therefore have an interest in viewing Brasília not only as a trading partner, but also as a potential actor in mediation, regional integration, and strategic diversification.

The true novelty of the current period then becomes clear. Venezuela is no longer simply confronting the question of how to regain a place in the old order. It must determine how to position itself within an order that is no longer that of 1990, 2000, or even 2015.

The global economy has become digital, but it remains material. It depends on software and semiconductors, but also on ports and pipelines. It values data, but remains dependent on energy. It favors globally integrated companies, while states seek to secure their production chains. It speaks of decarbonization while continuing to depend heavily on hydrocarbons. This contradiction is not a temporary anomaly; it is one of the fundamental characteristics of the global transition.

Venezuela possesses precisely some of the resources required for this transition, but it does not yet possess all the institutional and technological capabilities needed to convert them into power. That is its true historical challenge.

The possible disappearance of the bolívar could therefore be interpreted in two ways. In a superficial reading, it would simply represent the abandonment of a national currency after years of inflation. In a historical reading, it could symbolize a much deeper transformation: the transition from a conception of development based on monetary sovereignty, oil rents, and ideological confrontation toward one based on stability, diversification, technology, and the capacity to choose one’s partners.

For this reason, any monetary decision, if it occurs, will have to be accompanied by a reflection on sovereignty itself. A nation does not become less sovereign because it abandons an instrument that no longer adequately performs its functions. But it can become more dependent if it abandons its currency without simultaneously building the economic, institutional, and productive capabilities necessary to preserve its autonomy.

Venezuela therefore faces a choice that extends far beyond monetary policy. It can attempt to preserve the symbols of the old model, or it can use the present crisis as the starting point for national transformation. In the first case, dollarization would be little more than an accounting change. In the second, it could become one component of a much broader reconstruction project.

The true rupture would not therefore be the disappearance of the bolívar. It would be the disappearance of the idea that sovereignty is measured primarily by a State’s ability to control its currency, its resources, and its territory regardless of the quality of its institutions and the level of development of its population.

The 21st century imposes a more demanding definition. Sovereignty becomes the capacity to produce, innovate, negotiate, protect, educate, connect, and choose. In this new world, Venezuela will be truly autonomous when it can transform its oil into human capital, its territory into a logistics network, its universities into technological power, its diaspora into transnational capital, and its geographic position into a diplomatic advantage.

Only under this condition would the possible abandonment of the bolívar cease to be interpreted as the end of a currency and instead be understood as the beginning of a new national architecture. The next question therefore becomes unavoidable: what would actually happen if Caracas officially adopted the dollar, and what consequences would this have for citizens, companies, banks, the State, debt, oil, and economic sovereignty? It is this mechanism, far more complex than a simple change of banknotes, that must now be examined.

DOLLARIZATION PUT TO THE TEST OF REALITY: WHAT WOULD CHANGE FOR THE STATE, THE ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY

The hypothesis of officially abandoning the bolívar can only be understood seriously by distinguishing between de facto dollarization, already deeply established in certain economic transactions, and institutional dollarization, which would involve officially recognizing the dollar as the central currency of the economic system. This distinction is fundamental because it makes it possible to measure the true scope of a possible decision by Caracas. When a population begins to save, set certain prices, conclude contracts, and conduct a significant share of its transactions in a foreign currency, it is already expressing a loss of confidence in the national currency. But when the State decides to transform that practice into an official architecture, it crosses a much more significant threshold: it accepts relinquishing part of its monetary instruments in exchange for greater stability, predictability, and credibility. In Venezuela’s case, the question would not simply be whether the dollar is more stable than the bolívar, something that appears almost self-evident in light of the country’s recent monetary history, but whether the economy as a whole, the banking system, and public finances can operate sustainably in an environment in which the State no longer possesses the same capacity to create its own currency and intervene as it previously did.

This transformation would directly affect the Central Bank of Venezuela and, more broadly, the entire conception of economic policy. A central bank that no longer truly controls the currency used in transactions cannot employ the same instruments to respond to a liquidity crisis, support a bank in difficulty, or adjust monetary conditions according to the national economic cycle. Dollarization therefore imposes an external discipline that some regard as one of its principal advantages: the State can no longer finance its deficits as easily through money creation, and banks must operate in a currency whose issuance they do not control. But this discipline can also become a constraint when the economy experiences a shock. A dollarized country no longer possesses the same adjustment mechanism through the exchange rate and must absorb shocks through prices, wages, reserves, capital flows, and fiscal policy. The success of such a transformation would therefore depend less on the currency itself than on the quality of the institutions required to replace the monetary instruments being abandoned. If fiscal discipline, banking supervision, financial transparency, and administrative capacity remain weak, the dollar will not eliminate imbalances; it will simply prevent some of them from appearing in the traditional form of currency depreciation.

The transition would also have profound social consequences. Households that already hold dollar savings could experience greater consistency between their assets and expenditures, while companies working with international suppliers or customers could benefit from reduced exchange-rate risk. But these potential improvements should not obscure the difficulties facing groups whose incomes remain insufficient or whose activities depend on public mechanisms. Public employees, pensioners, low-income workers, and informal workers could be particularly sensitive to the way salaries and benefits are converted. A monetary reform that stabilized prices while leaving part of the population without sufficient purchasing power could not be considered a complete success. The social question should therefore be integrated from the beginning of the reform: the conversion timetable, income protection, price transparency, banking regulation, access to credit, and the preservation of social-protection mechanisms should be conceived as elements of a single architecture. Dollarization could reduce a major source of instability, but it could not replace social policy or create the conditions for growth by itself. It could alter the monetary framework within which reconstruction becomes possible; it could not carry out that reconstruction in place of the State.

WHO GAINS, WHO LOSES, AND WHO MUST BE PROTECTED? THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF THE TRANSITION

Every major monetary reform produces distributive effects, even when it is presented as a general stabilization measure. In Venezuela’s case, this dimension is even more important because the population has already developed differentiated strategies for coping with monetary instability: some households hold dollars, others depend on the bolívar, some work in sectors linked to foreign currencies, while others remain primarily dependent on public income or the informal economy. Official dollarization could reduce certain inequalities associated with inflation, but it could also expose others. People who already have access to foreign currency could enter the new architecture with a greater capacity to adapt than households whose incomes are low and irregular. The success of the reform would therefore depend on the State’s ability to prevent monetary stabilization from becoming merely the stabilization of the accounts of groups already integrated into the formal economy.

This issue leads directly to the question of purchasing power. A stable currency does not automatically mean sufficient income. If productivity remains low, infrastructure continues to deteriorate, and formal employment grows slowly, monetary stability could coexist with persistent poverty. The reform should therefore be accompanied by a strategy for production and employment. Companies must be able to invest, workers must have access to training, and young people must have a professional horizon that is not limited to emigration. The generational dimension is decisive. A generation that has grown up amid monetary uncertainty does not merely ask for a more stable currency; it asks for the possibility of building a life trajectory. It wants to be able to study without considering emigration the only prospect, to work without watching its income continuously lose value, to save without fearing the disappearance of its assets, and to participate in an economy offering opportunities in the sectors of the future. The monetary question thus becomes a question of intergenerational confidence: a society truly begins to emerge from a crisis when its young people once again believe that the future can be built within their own country.

This perspective also requires moving beyond the simplistic opposition between winners and losers. The real challenge is to determine how the costs of transition should be distributed and how the benefits of stability can be converted into productivity gains. A more predictable economy can encourage investment, but only if institutions allow companies to operate, infrastructure is reliable, rules are reasonably stable, and the economic justice system provides sufficient guarantees. The private sector cannot rebuild a national economy on its own; neither can the State do so without entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, skilled workers, and capital. Monetary reform must therefore be conceived as one component of a new economic contract between the State, businesses, and the population. The real measure of success should not be merely the disappearance of hyperinflation, but the transformation of monetary stability into jobs, investment, purchasing power, human capital, and social mobility.

OIL AS TRANSITION CAPITAL: TURNING RENT INTO NATIONAL CAPACITY

The oil question is probably the material core of any Venezuelan reconstruction. But the problem is no longer simply whether Venezuela possesses enough oil to recover significant revenues; it is what the country will do with those revenues when they return. The historical precedent is sufficiently clear to require caution. An increase in oil revenues can rapidly create the illusion of renewal if it primarily finances consumption, imports, and expanded public expenditure without simultaneously strengthening national productive capacity. When the energy cycle reverses, vulnerabilities return with even greater intensity. Venezuela’s reconstruction must therefore break with this logic by treating oil not as permanent rent, but as transition capital intended to finance an economic transformation that will progressively reduce dependence on that same rent.

This transformation should begin with the infrastructure that determines productivity across the economy: the electricity grid, roads, ports, water systems, telecommunications, digital infrastructure, industrial capabilities, and logistics. But it must go much further. A significant share of oil wealth should be capable of being transformed into human capital through education, scientific research, vocational training, and the creation of technological ecosystems. Venezuela possesses an advantage that many producing countries do not necessarily possess to the same degree: a substantial population, a significant diaspora, a university tradition, and a strategic geographic position. The challenge would be to use energy revenues to reconnect these different assets. Oil could finance the infrastructure that allows engineers to work, universities capable of training new generations, the digital networks required by the modern economy, and industrial capabilities that allow more value to be produced domestically.

Such a strategy would profoundly transform the economic meaning of oil. Rather than being merely a source of foreign currency, it would become an instrument of productive transformation. Oil revenues could finance refinery modernization, but also the training of energy specialists; they could enable the reconstruction of export infrastructure, but also the development of logistics capabilities; they could support energy investment while also financing technologies for efficiency, monitoring, and automation. The true indicator of success would therefore not be merely increased oil production, but the proportion of oil wealth transformed into assets that continue to generate value as global hydrocarbon demand evolves. In a world committed to the energy transition while remaining heavily dependent on oil and gas, this strategy would be particularly important. Venezuela cannot know exactly how quickly the global economy will decarbonize, but it can know that permanent dependence on oil would constitute a risk. It must therefore use the energy advantage it possesses today to build the capabilities it will need tomorrow.

FOUR POSSIBLE VENEZUELAS: SCENARIOS FOR 2026–2035

Venezuela’s future cannot be seriously described through a single projection. The 2026–2035 period should instead be regarded as a zone of uncertainty in which several trajectories are possible, depending on the monetary, institutional, energy, and geopolitical decisions adopted. The first scenario would be dollarization accompanied by institutional and productive reconstruction. In this trajectory, monetary stability would substantially reduce uncertainty, investment would gradually return, the oil sector would recover greater productive capacity, and energy revenues would be used to rebuild infrastructure and diversify the economy. Venezuela could then progressively recover a significant regional economic position, not simply because of oil, but through a combination of energy, logistics, human capital, and services. In such a scenario, dollarization would be less an end in itself than a stabilization mechanism serving a broader transformation.

The second scenario would be monetary success through dollarization but incomplete economic transformation. Inflation could be contained, transactions would become more predictable, and certain investments could resume, but institutions would remain fragile, oil dependence would persist, and productivity would advance insufficiently. The country would experience a form of stabilization without genuine transformation. This scenario would certainly be preferable to another monetary crisis, but it would not allow Venezuela to overcome its structural dependence. The third scenario would involve retaining the bolívar while implementing institutional reforms deep enough to gradually restore its credibility. This possibility should not be dismissed simply because a significant portion of the economy has already shifted toward the dollar. A national currency can recover an economic function if it is backed by credible public finances, an independent central bank, sufficient production, and strong institutions. But this scenario would require an exceptionally high level of discipline and a degree of confidence that previous experiences have deeply weakened.

The fourth scenario would be the failure of transformation. The currency could be changed without institutions changing; oil revenues could recover without generating diversification; capital could remain cautious; and political tensions could prevent reconstruction. In that case, monetary reform would amount only to superficial stabilization. The country would remain dependent on external resources, energy cycles, and decisions made elsewhere. This matrix leads to an essential conclusion: Venezuela’s future will not be determined by the choice between the dollar and the bolívar considered in isolation. It will depend on the ability to connect currency, institutions, energy, human capital, technology, infrastructure, and diplomacy. Currency can alter constraints; it does not by itself determine a country’s historical trajectory.

VENEZUELA AND ITS REGION: COLOMBIA, BRAZIL, THE CARIBBEAN AND THE UNITED STATES

Venezuela’s transformation would necessarily have a regional dimension, because geography does not disappear with political crises. Colombia would be directly affected by any potential economic stabilization of its neighbor. A recovery in production, trade and investment could help reduce some migratory pressures, expand cross-border exchanges and create new economic opportunities. Yet the relationship could also become more complex if Venezuela were to rapidly regain significant energy capacity. The two countries would then need to build a relationship based on economic interests and pragmatic management of their shared border, rather than on the ideological alternation of their respective governments alone.

Brazil would occupy a different, but equally important, position. Its economic size, diplomatic influence and ability to engage with several centers of power give it a distinctive role in any potential South American reconstruction. Caracas could seek to strengthen its relations with Brasília in energy, agriculture, infrastructure, logistics and trade, while using that relationship to diversify its international partners. Such a strategy would be consistent with the broader evolution of the international system: states are increasingly seeking to avoid exclusive dependencies and to multiply their negotiating spaces. Venezuela could therefore develop a foreign policy combining energy cooperation with certain partners, trade relations with others, and technological cooperation with still others, without necessarily viewing every relationship through a bloc-based logic.

The Caribbean would also be affected by such a transformation. Venezuela has historical, energy and political ties with several states in the region, particularly Cuba, but these relationships could gradually evolve toward a more functional logic. Cooperation could focus on energy, healthcare, education, transportation, maritime security, agriculture or trade, without necessarily reproducing the ideological alignments of the past. For the United States, the issue would be even more strategic. Washington would have an interest in Venezuela’s political and energy stability, but the relationship could no longer be viewed solely through the categories of confrontation inherited from the Cold War. China’s presence, the transformation of energy markets, technological competition and the growing determination of Latin American states to preserve their autonomy are forcing the United States to rethink its influence in the region. Venezuela thus becomes one element of a much broader geography in which energy, migration, infrastructure, security and investment intersect.

THE NEW VENEZUELA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: BREAKING FREE FROM TECHNOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE

Monetary stabilization and oil reconstruction alone would not be enough to secure Venezuela’s place in the twenty-first-century global economy if the country were unable, at the same time, to reduce its technological gap. This is probably one of the most important and least visible dimensions of the transformation underway. In the contemporary economy, a country can possess enormous natural resources and nevertheless remain vulnerable if it depends almost entirely on foreign technologies to exploit, transport, process and market them. Artificial intelligence further intensifies this reality because it is gradually becoming a cross-cutting infrastructure for industry, finance, healthcare, public administration, defense, agriculture and education. For Venezuela, the challenge would therefore not simply be to adopt AI tools, but to build the skills and capabilities required to avoid becoming merely a consumer of technologies designed elsewhere.

The first priority should be human capital. Investments in engineers, scientists, technicians, data specialists, developers and researchers could offer greater strategic returns than many traditional infrastructure projects because they would multiply capabilities across almost every sector. The second priority would be digital and energy infrastructure. Artificial intelligence requires reliable networks, computing capacity, data centers, stable electricity supplies and robust cybersecurity. Energy reconstruction and digital transformation should therefore be designed as interconnected processes. The third priority would be sector-specific applications. Venezuela would have no reason to mechanically reproduce the models of the major technological powers. Instead, it could develop applications adapted to its own strengths and needs: optimization of oil infrastructure, precision agriculture, water management, telemedicine, public administration, disaster prevention, port logistics, education and environmental monitoring. Such a strategy would make it possible to use AI as a tool for catching up rather than merely as a symbol of modernity.

The diaspora could ultimately become a decisive component of this strategy. Venezuelans based in universities, technology companies, research centers and advanced economies potentially constitute a vast network of expertise. Reconstruction would not necessarily require their immediate return. It could instead create mechanisms allowing them to participate remotely, transfer knowledge, invest, establish businesses, develop university partnerships and contribute to training programs. This approach would move beyond the traditional view of the diaspora as merely a source of financial transfers. In a digital economy, a diaspora can simultaneously function as a scientific, technological, entrepreneurial and diplomatic network. Venezuela could thus transform one of the painful consequences of its migration crisis into an element of its reconstruction.

THE END OF A POLITICAL LANGUAGE? FROM THE IDEOLOGICAL TWENTIETH CENTURY TO THE CIVILIZATIONAL TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

The potential abandonment of the bolivar can also be interpreted as a symbol of a deeper ideological transformation. This does not mean that ideologies have disappeared, nor that conflicts between political and economic models have ceased to exist. Rather, it suggests that the categories inherited from the twentieth century are no longer sufficient to explain the full range of contemporary power relations. For much of the previous century, political debates were structured around major oppositions: socialism versus capitalism, nationalism versus liberalism, state versus market, sovereignty versus dependence. These categories retain historical and political relevance, but they are now intersected by new realities. A country can be politically sovereign while remaining technologically dependent on a foreign power; it can possess considerable resources while lacking industrial capabilities; it can retain a national currency while making extensive use of a foreign one; it can be politically close to one country while economically dependent on another. Contemporary power has become far more complex.

This transformation is also generational. Young people entering the global economy today live in an environment in which digital technology, social networks, platforms, electronic payments, remote work, artificial intelligence and international mobility are profoundly reshaping their relationship with the economy and the state. For them, sovereignty can no longer be reduced to possession of a national currency or the ability to proclaim political independence. It also includes the ability to access knowledge, master technologies, create a business, work with the world, protect personal data, receive international payments and participate in global value chains. This evolution does not mean that national identity is becoming less important. It means that national identity must now be accompanied by concrete capabilities enabling society to participate in the world without becoming entirely subordinate to it.

Venezuela could therefore find itself facing a transition that goes far beyond the monetary question. The challenge would be to move from a conception of sovereignty based primarily on control over resources, territory and currency toward a conception that also incorporates knowledge, technology, human capital, infrastructure and negotiating capacity. Under this new definition, abandoning a monetary instrument that no longer performs its functions effectively would not necessarily constitute an abandonment of sovereignty. The true loss of sovereignty would instead occur if the country gave up developing the capabilities that enable it to choose, negotiate and produce. The twenty-first century does not eliminate sovereignty; it makes it more demanding. It requires states to transform territorial power into institutional power, natural wealth into human capital, and geographic position into economic and diplomatic capacity.

THE CPGNNews VIEW: VENEZUELA MUST DO MORE THAN CHANGE ITS CURRENCY

At CPGNNews, we view this transformation with an attention that goes far beyond the scrutiny normally given to a monetary decision. We are following it with the awareness that we may be witnessing a moment that, with the perspective of time, could emerge as one of the most significant turning points in Venezuela’s contemporary economic and political history. We are not merely looking at a government that may decide to alter the status of a currency; we are looking at a society that, after living for years with the consequences of profound economic disorganization, may be forced to recognize that some of the certainties inherited from the past no longer correspond to the realities of the present. Behind the figures, exchange rates, reserves, markets, and institutional decisions are families that have struggled to preserve their savings, workers who have watched their incomes lose value, young people who have grown up with uncertainty as their horizon, entrepreneurs who have learned to operate under extraordinary conditions, and a diaspora scattered across the world that continues, despite the distance, to maintain a deep connection with its country. It is this human dimension that we want to place at the heart of our perspective. A monetary transformation is never merely about money when that currency has accompanied, for years, the hopes, anxieties, sacrifices, and plans of millions of people.

It is precisely for this reason that CPGNNews believes it would be dangerous to present a potential dollarization as a magic solution. The dollar can bring stability, reduce part of the monetary uncertainty, and allow households, businesses, and investors to gradually regain the ability to plan ahead. But no currency, however strong, can on its own repair a country’s institutions, rebuild its infrastructure, restore its education system, rebuild confidence in the justice system, modernize its administration, or give its younger generations back the conviction that their future can still be built at home. Venezuela must therefore avoid replacing one belief with another. It should not move from the idea that the bolivar could, through political will alone, guarantee economic sovereignty to the opposite idea that the dollar could, through its stability alone, guarantee prosperity. A currency is an instrument. It can provide a solid foundation, but it can never, by itself, become the house in which a nation chooses to live.

Yet Venezuela possesses something profoundly valuable: it is not a country devoid of possibilities. It has considerable energy resources, a geographical position that places it at the crossroads of several major economic spaces, an extensive maritime coastline, agricultural and industrial potential, a substantial population, a global diaspora, and human capital that, despite years of hardship, has not disappeared. Behind the crises, there remain skills, families, entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers, teachers, workers, and young people who possess an intimate knowledge of the country and the capacity to contribute to its reconstruction. This may be one of the most important dimensions of our role as witnesses: when a country goes through a prolonged crisis, it is easy to see only what has collapsed. We must also look at what has endured. And in Venezuela, much has endured. Men and women have continued to work, study, build businesses, care for others, create, and keep communities alive despite uncertainty. Genuine reconstruction must begin with this human energy rather than treating society merely as a passive beneficiary of reforms decided within institutions.

This is why we believe that the real question is not simply whether Venezuela has enough oil, dollars, or reserves to support a new monetary architecture. The question is whether it will be able to transform its resources into lasting capabilities. A country can possess immense natural wealth and remain poor if its institutions cannot convert that wealth into infrastructure, education, productivity, and innovation. It can have a large population without transforming that population into human capital if it does not give its younger generations the means to learn, create, and participate. It can occupy an exceptional geographical position and remain marginal in international trade if its ports, roads, energy networks, and digital infrastructure are not adequate to the task. The real work of reconstruction will therefore consist of reconnecting elements that have too often been considered separately: oil with education, energy with industry, infrastructure with productivity, the diaspora with innovation, monetary stability with investment, and technology with sovereignty.

The deepest transformation, however, will have to be institutional, political, and cultural. Venezuela will gradually have to move beyond a logic in which each political cycle seeks to rewrite the country’s future according to its own vision of power, while each energy cycle determines the financial room available to the state. A nation cannot build a sustainable trajectory if its institutions start over with every political transition and if its public policies remain hostage to the price of a commodity. The twenty-first century requires another form of governance: more predictable, more professional, more transparent, more capable of measuring results, and above all more capable of thinking beyond the next political deadline. Modern sovereignty no longer lies solely in the ability to decide independently; it also lies in the ability to possess institutions strong enough to withstand crises, sufficient expertise to master emerging technologies, and an economy diversified enough not to depend on a single product, a single market, or a single partner.

This lesson extends far beyond Venezuela’s borders and deserves to be heard by other fragile or vulnerable states now observing this experience. We say this with caution, without suggesting that national trajectories are identical: the twenty-first-century world is becoming increasingly unforgiving of accumulated delays in governance, education, digital development, infrastructure, financial transparency, and technological preparedness. States that continue to administer their societies with institutional instruments designed for the realities of the twentieth century risk discovering that their difficulties no longer arise solely from limited resources, but from the widening gap between their systems of governance and the speed at which the outside world is changing. Artificial intelligence, new value chains, digital finance, energy transitions, cybersecurity, new forms of work, and the instantaneous movement of capital and knowledge now require governments to rethink their methods, institutions, and priorities. This does not mean chasing every technological innovation, still less believing that technology can replace politics. It means understanding that governing in the twenty-first century now requires the ability to anticipate.

Venezuela also reminds us that a prolonged crisis eventually becomes a crisis of confidence. When citizens no longer know what their wages will be worth, when businesses can no longer predict their costs, when young people no longer know whether their education will enable them to build a professional life, and when families begin organizing their futures somewhere other than their own country, the problem extends far beyond macroeconomic indicators. It reaches the intimate relationship between a society and its future. That is why reconstruction must also be a reconstruction of trust. It must give citizens concrete reasons to believe that rules can endure, that work can be rewarded, that savings can be protected, that education can open doors, and that the state can once again become an instrument serving the collective good rather than an additional source of uncertainty.

This is where our role as a media organization takes on its full meaning. CPGNNews does not want to observe this transformation merely as a market event. We want to accompany it as journalistic and historical witnesses to a period in which several models appear to be reaching their limits simultaneously. We see Venezuela as a national experience, but also as a mirror held up to other societies that must now ask themselves whether their institutions are prepared for the demands of a new century. We are following the decisions that will be made in Caracas, but we are also looking at what they mean for Bogotá, Brasília, Washington, Havana, the Caribbean, and, more broadly, for the countries of the Global South that are themselves seeking to preserve their autonomy in a world in which power relations are increasingly determined by technology, energy, data, human capital, and the ability to manage interdependencies.

Above all, we want to remind the reader of one thing: behind every economic transformation are human lives. Charts may show stabilization, markets may welcome a decision, and investors may once again look at a country with interest; but genuine success will become visible only when families regain the ability to make plans, when young people once again believe that their future does not necessarily lie elsewhere, when workers can live from their labor with greater dignity, and when entrepreneurs can create without constantly confronting unpredictability. Authentic reconstruction is therefore not measured solely by the return of capital. It is also measured by the return of hope.

That is why Venezuela should not merely seek to change its currency. It should seek to change the relationship between the state and the citizen, between wealth and responsibility, between oil and the future, between youth and knowledge, between the diaspora and the nation, and between technology and sovereignty. Potential dollarization could become one stage in this transformation if it is accompanied by a new form of governance, institutional discipline, a productive strategy, and a generational vision. It would become an illusion if it were used to avoid the more difficult reforms. Genuine political courage will not consist in choosing a currency; it will consist in accepting the need to transform the institutions that have prevented this society from sustainably converting its immense resources into collective well-being.

Through this analysis, CPGNNews therefore assumes the role of an attentive witness, but also of a human witness. We look at Venezuela with the rigor demanded by international journalism, but also with the awareness that economic history is never abstract for those who live through it. We know that behind every monetary crisis are families, behind every migration are personal stories, behind every business closure are years of work, and behind every reform is the hope, sometimes fragile, of beginning again. This is the reality we intend to continue following, with passion, with caution, and with the duty never to confuse the spectacle of an announcement with the depth of a transformation.

Venezuela may therefore be in the process of changing its currency, but the real historical question is much greater: will it be able to change its model, its governance, and its vision of the future before the twenty-first century forces it to do so under even more difficult circumstances? This is the question we will continue to follow, not as distant observers, but as engaged witnesses to a transformation whose consequences could extend far beyond Venezuela’s borders.

GENERAL CONCLUSION: IS VENEZUELA CHANGING ITS CURRENCY OR CHANGING CENTURIES?

The potential abandonment of the bolivar ultimately appears as the meeting point of several histories that extend far beyond the currency itself. It is the product of a prolonged crisis of confidence, a transformation in economic practices, and a geopolitical realignment that is reshaping the conditions under which states define their sovereignty. Venezuela enters this new phase with a major contradiction: it possesses energy resources capable of giving it an important place in the global economy, while simultaneously having to rebuild the institutions, infrastructure, human capital, and technological capabilities required to transform those resources into lasting power. This contradiction explains why the question of the bolivar cannot be separated from that of oil, debt, the United States, China, India, Russia, the BRICS, technology, and artificial intelligence. What is at stake is not simply the substitution of one currency for another; it is the possibility for a country to redefine its place within an international system that already looks very different from the one in which its earlier political doctrines were conceived.

The great historical rupture could lie precisely in this transformation of the language of sovereignty. The twentieth century often associated sovereignty with the ability to control one’s currency, territory, resources, and borders. The twenty-first century adds to this definition dimensions that have become equally decisive: scientific capacity, technological mastery, digital infrastructure, human capital, cybersecurity, access to financial networks, control over data, energy capacity, and the ability to negotiate simultaneously with several centers of power. This new reality does not mean that states are becoming less important. It means that they must be capable of operating in an environment in which power now circulates among territories, markets, technology companies, financial networks, infrastructures, and transnational communities. For Venezuela, this means that genuine sovereignty can no longer be measured solely by the possession of a national currency. It must also be measured by society’s ability to produce, learn, innovate, negotiate, and decide.

The next decade will determine whether this possibility becomes reality. Between 2026 and 2035, the decisive indicators will not be limited to the inflation rate or the price of oil. It will be necessary to observe the quality of institutions, energy production, formal job creation, the reconstruction of the electricity system, private investment, infrastructure modernization, scientific training, productivity trends, the return or mobilization of the diaspora, the development of digital capabilities, and Venezuela’s integration into new value chains. Dollarization could contribute to stabilizing the economy, but it will constitute a historic turning point only if it accompanies a productive transformation. Conversely, maintaining the bolivar would not automatically constitute a victory for sovereignty if the currency remained incapable of sustainably performing its functions. The real question, therefore, is not the monetary symbol, but the national capacity to generate trust.

Venezuela could thus become one of the most revealing cases of the transition between two eras. One era in which sovereignty was largely understood in terms of territory, resources, currency, and ideology; and a new era in which these elements remain essential but are complemented by technology, human capital, networks, data, energy, mobility, and the capacity for innovation. If Venezuela uses its energy wealth to rebuild its infrastructure, educate its young people, mobilize its diaspora, develop its digital capabilities, diversify its economy, and restore its institutions, the potential abandonment of the bolivar could retrospectively appear not as a capitulation, but as the first visible act of a much deeper reconstruction. If, on the other hand, the country merely changes its currency without changing its economic model, the reform will only shift the problem without solving it.

The historical question that will remain, therefore, will not simply be whether Venezuela abandoned the bolivar. It will be whether it understood that the true challenge of the twenty-first century is to transform inherited dependencies into managed interdependencies, natural resources into human capital, oil revenues into productive capabilities, the diaspora into a network of expertise, and imported technology into knowledge that can progressively be mastered domestically. Venezuela must therefore do more than emerge from its currency crisis; it must move beyond the logic that made that crisis possible. Only under this condition can a potential monetary transformation become the symbol of a broader historical change: not the end of a sovereign nation, but the search for a new definition of sovereignty adapted to the economic, technological, civilizational, and generational realities of the twenty-first century.

FINAL CONCLUSION

VENEZUELA IS NOT ONLY CHANGING ITS CURRENCY: IT IS CONFRONTED WITH THE QUESTION OF ITS ENTRY INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

At the end of this long examination of Venezuela, one conclusion becomes unavoidable: the question of the bolivar and its possible replacement by the U.S. dollar cannot be reduced to a technical monetary-policy decision. At the heart of this controversy lies a proposal for full dollarization that would seek, according to its proponents, to abandon the bolivar and eliminate the mechanism through which public deficits can be financed by monetary creation. But this proposal must be treated with all the caution required by serious journalism of record: it represents a political and institutional possibility, not a decision definitively adopted by the Venezuelan state. This distinction is essential. It requires us to examine not only what Venezuela may have decided, but what the very possibility of such a change reveals about the state of its economy, its institutions, and its relationship with sovereignty. Venezuela has therefore not yet officially turned the page on the bolivar; it is confronted with a choice whose consequences could extend far beyond the framework of monetary reform. It is precisely this uncertainty that makes the moment historically significant. A nation that has long associated its sovereignty with its national currency now faces a question that many states may eventually have to confront in different forms: in a world where power increasingly depends on financial stability, human capital, technology, energy, infrastructure, and the ability to negotiate with several centers of power, economic sovereignty can no longer be measured solely by the capacity to issue one’s own currency. It must also be measured by the ability to protect savings, finance production, guarantee the continuity of the state, educate its population, retain its talent, and progressively master the technologies that determine power.

What strikes us, as we follow this transformation as a media organization and as journalistic witnesses of our time, is the contrast between the apparent coldness of economic instruments and the human reality they conceal. Behind an inflation rate are families seeking to preserve their purchasing power; behind a currency depreciation are workers watching the value of their efforts erode; behind migration are parents, children, teachers, engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and students who have sometimes left their country not because they had stopped loving it, but because they could no longer see how to build their future there. Behind a potential monetary stabilization, therefore, there would be something far more valuable than a macroeconomic indicator: the possibility for a society to begin making plans again. This human dimension must prevent any triumphalist interpretation of dollarization. A stable currency can restore part of the confidence that has been lost; it can make prices more predictable, facilitate certain economic decisions, and reduce a major source of uncertainty. But it cannot, by itself, restore a nation. Genuine confidence emerges when citizens see that their institutions function, that their work can provide a decent livelihood, that their savings can be protected, that their children can receive a quality education, and that the future does not systematically force the younger generations to seek elsewhere what they can no longer find at home.

Venezuela still possesses the resources necessary to write another chapter in its history. Its hydrocarbons, geographical position, maritime access, agricultural capabilities, industrial potential, population, diaspora, and the skills that remain present both inside and outside the country constitute a considerable set of assets. But contemporary economic history teaches us that resources become power only when they are transformed by institutions capable of directing them toward the future. Venezuela’s real challenge will therefore be to transform oil into infrastructure, energy revenues into human capital, the diaspora into a network of expertise, monetary stability into investment, investment into productivity, and imported technology into capabilities that can progressively be mastered. This requirement is particularly visible in the oil sector itself: production capacity is not enough if the infrastructure required for storage, transportation, refining, and exports remains inadequate or fragile. Potential underground wealth becomes national wealth only when it can circulate efficiently through an economy capable of transforming it into lasting value. This is why Venezuela’s reconstruction will have to be conceived as a complete chain, extending from energy and infrastructure to education, technology, industry, and services.

This is where the Venezuelan experience extends far beyond Venezuela’s borders. Fragile states, commodity-dependent economies, and governments confronted with accelerated technological transformation should examine this history with caution, not in order to copy Caracas’s decisions, but to understand the risks of institutional delay. The lesson is not that all countries should abandon their national currencies or adopt the dollar. Such a conclusion would be dangerously simplistic. The real lesson is that a state can no longer wait until a crisis becomes systemic before reforming its institutions. The twenty-first century requires governance capable of anticipating digital transformations, artificial intelligence, new value chains, energy transitions, rapid capital movements, migrations of skills, cybersecurity, and new forms of power. States that preserve institutions designed for a world that no longer exists risk gradually losing their capacity for action, even when they still possess considerable natural resources. The caution we address to such states is therefore not an invitation to imitation, but a call for adaptation: reform before reality forces reform in a state of emergency.

We have therefore witnessed, throughout this analysis, something deeper than a monetary debate. Venezuela stands at the crossroads of two eras. One was shaped by the great ideologies of the twentieth century, territorial sovereignty, geopolitical blocs, natural resources, and the classical instruments of the state. The other is being built around data, artificial intelligence, digital networks, energy, human capital, infrastructure, knowledge, and far more complex forms of interdependence. The old categories are not disappearing; they are simply no longer sufficient. A country can be politically sovereign while remaining technologically dependent. It can be rich in resources while poor in capabilities. It can possess a national currency without possessing a truly credible currency. It can maintain ideological proximity with one partner while depending economically on another. It can seek to preserve its autonomy while requiring external capital, technology, markets, and expertise. This complexity now defines the world in which Venezuela must rebuild its future. It also defines the world to which many states in the Global South will have to adapt, confronted with a growing gap between their political ambitions and their technological capabilities.

CPGNNews will therefore continue to follow this transformation not as a simple financial episode, but as a human, economic, geopolitical, and historical event. Our role is to examine the decisions being made today with sufficient distance to assess their consequences tomorrow, but also with sufficient human proximity never to forget those who live through these transformations. We do not yet know whether Venezuela will officially adopt the dollar, in what form, or according to what timetable. What we already know is that the question reveals a much larger reality: the country must now decide what form of sovereignty it wants to exercise in a world where power no longer resides solely in currency, oil, or territory, but also in the ability to learn, produce, innovate, negotiate, anticipate, and protect its population. This is the transformation we intend to continue observing with passion, but also with the prudence appropriate to a media organization conscious of its historical responsibility. We are witnessing an era in which some old certainties are fading while the new rules of the world have not yet been fully established.

The true historical question is therefore not ultimately: “Will Venezuela abandon the bolivar?” It is much more demanding: “Will Venezuela be able to transform this crisis of confidence into an opportunity to rebuild its economic, institutional, technological, and generational model?” If the answer is yes, eventual dollarization may be understood as one of the instruments of a broader transformation. If the answer is no, no currency will be able to sustainably replace the reforms that have been postponed. This may be the most important lesson this history offers to all vulnerable states: it is better to adapt institutions voluntarily to the new realities of the century than to allow crises to impose that adaptation under emergency conditions. The twenty-first century does not ask nations to surrender their sovereignty; it asks them to become strong enough, intelligent enough, and adaptable enough to truly exercise it.

STRATEGIC ANNEX

THE 100 VENEZUELA INDICATORS, 2026–2035

This matrix constitutes a prospective monitoring framework, not a collection of predictions. Its purpose is to enable CPGNNews and its readers to assess, year after year, whether potential monetary stabilization is actually translated into economic, social, institutional and technological reconstruction. The indicators should be updated using primary or institutional sources, and their evolution should always be interpreted within its broader context.

I. CURRENCY AND MACROECONOMIC STABILITY

1. Annual inflation rate,
2. Monthly inflation,
3. Food inflation,
4. Evolution of the bolivar-to-dollar exchange rate,
5. Exchange-rate volatility,
6. Share of transactions conducted in dollars,
7. Share of bank deposits held in foreign currencies,
8. Share of bank credit denominated in foreign currencies,
9. Evolution of the money supply,
10. Household confidence in the currency.

II. PUBLIC FINANCES AND DEBT

11. Budget deficit,
12. Public revenues as a share of GDP,
13. Public expenditure as a share of GDP,
14. Primary deficit,
15. Total public debt,
16. External debt,
17. Annual debt service,
18. Debt-to-GDP ratio,
19. Share of oil revenues in the budget,
20. Budget transparency.

III. OIL AND ENERGY

21. Daily oil production,
22. Daily exports,
23. Refining capacity,
24. Refinery utilization,
25. Exports to the United States,
26. Exports to India,
27. Exports to Europe,
28. Oil revenues,
29. Foreign investment in the oil sector,
30. Investment in oil infrastructure,
31. Condition of port terminals,
32. Reliability of the electricity grid.

IV. REAL ECONOMY AND PRODUCTION

33. Real GDP growth,
34. GDP per capita,
35. Labor productivity,
36. Industrial production,
37. Agricultural production,
38. Private investment,
39. Public investment,
40. Gross fixed capital formation,
41. Business creation,
42. Business closures.

V. TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION

43. Non-oil exports,
44. Imports,
45. Trade balance,
46. Current account,
47. Foreign direct investment,
48. International reserves,
49. Geographic diversification of exports,
50. Share of trade with the United States,
51. Share of trade with China,
52. Share of trade with India.

VI. SOCIETY, EMPLOYMENT AND PURCHASING POWER

53. Unemployment rate,
54. Informal employment,
55. Formal employment,
56. Real wages,
57. Real minimum wage,
58. Poverty,
59. Extreme poverty,
60. Income inequality,
61. Access to essential services,
62. Migration trends.

VII. HUMAN CAPITAL AND THE NEXT GENERATION

63. Education expenditure,
64. School enrollment rate,
65. School dropout rate,
66. Vocational training,
67. Science graduates,
68. Engineers trained annually,
69. Researchers,
70. Skills outflow,
71. Return of diaspora talent,
72. Diaspora participation in the national economy.

VIII. TECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

73. Internet access,
74. Quality of digital networks,
75. Mobile coverage,
76. Data centers,
77. National computing capacity,
78. Technology companies,
79. Digital start-ups,
80. AI adoption by businesses,
81. Use of AI in public administration,
82. Digital skills training.

IX. INFRASTRUCTURE AND CONNECTIVITY

83. Reliability of the electricity grid,
84. Access to drinking water,
85. Condition of the road network,
86. Port capacity,
87. Airport capacity,
88. National logistics,
89. Telecommunications,
90. Infrastructure investment.

X. GOVERNANCE, GEOPOLITICS AND POWER

91. Independence and credibility of monetary institutions,
92. Quality of public governance,
93. Regulatory predictability,
94. Rule of law,
95. Transparency of oil revenues,
96. Economic relations with the United States,
97. Relations with China,
98. Relations with Brazil and Colombia,
99. Relations with the Caribbean and Cuba,
100. Venezuela’s ability to maintain a diversified and autonomous foreign policy.

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

The final documentation of the dossier should be organized according to a clear hierarchy of sources: primary and official sources, international institutions, recognized news agencies, specialized press and secondary sources for contextualization. This hierarchy makes it possible to distinguish directly established facts from political statements, estimates, projections and analyses.

Particular attention should be paid to the question of dollarization. Until an official decision has been adopted by the competent authorities, it should be presented as a proposal, hypothesis or scenario, depending on the precise context of the source. This distinction is a fundamental requirement of journalistic rigor.

Economic and macroeconomic data should primarily be cross-checked against publications from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations and the relevant statistical institutions. Data concerning oil, exports, sanctions, investment and trade flows should be cross-checked with institutional sources and major international agencies in order to avoid confusion between production, capacity, exports, revenues and future potential.

Data concerning employment, education, migration, digital infrastructure and human development should, whenever possible, be cross-checked against data from the International Labour Organization, UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union and other relevant specialized organizations. Journalistic sources should be used to establish timelines, statements, political reactions and recent developments, while structural data should, whenever possible, be traced back to their institutional source.

CPGNNews DOCUMENTARY PRINCIPLE

Whenever information can be verified through a primary source or an institution with direct expertise on the subject, that source should be given priority. Whenever a figure remains an estimate, projection or information still under confirmation, its status must be explicitly preserved in the text.

This rule is intended to maintain a permanent distinction between established fact, estimate, projection, political statement and prospective scenario. It constitutes one of the essential safeguards of the credibility of an international dossier devoted to an issue as sensitive as Venezuela’s economic and geopolitical future.

CPGNNews EDITORIAL INFORMATION

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CaribPulse Global News Network, CPGNNews

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To contact the newsroom: info@cpgnnews.com

Paris – Ottawa – Washington – Port-au-Prince | August 2026

International strategic dossier devoted to Venezuela, monetary transformation, geopolitical realignment and its entry into the twenty-first century.

END OF THE CPGNNEWS STRATEGIC DOSSIER