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For more than two decades, the socialist regime in Venezuela survived not just on oil and repression, but on a quiet international scaffolding.
The structure included foreign politicians who lent Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez legitimacy, foreign businessmen who laundered their money and foreign governments that looked the other way.
In the past few days, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department dealt a series of blows to that house of cards.
On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old Cuban tyrant brother of the long-deceased Fidel Castro, on charges tied to the 1996 killing of four men, including three US citizens, over international waters.
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Daniel Di Martino is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the founder of the Dissident Project, a speakers’ bureau for young immigrants from socialist countries. He earned his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University.