The United States has designated Venezuela’s so-called Cartel de los Soles a “foreign terrorist organization”, marking the latest escalation in US-Venezuela tensions.

Washington alleges Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro heads the organisation, which, the US says, is involved in widespread corruption and drug trafficking. Maduro denies the accusations amid growing fears of potential US military action in the region, and his government has called the cartel an “invention”.

The US designation comes after continued US interceptions of boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific and the recent arrival of the Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group in the Caribbean this month. The US says the military build-up is targeting drug trafficking, but Caracas accuses Washington of using it as a pretext for “imperialist” plans to topple Maduro’s administration – a view echoed by some analysts.

Venezuela has long grappled with political instability and economic decline, rooted partly in its reliance on oil. This fragility, compounded by years of sanctions, has also led to one of the world’s largest exoduses as Venezuelans seek stability and better opportunities abroad.

Here are 10 charts to help explain how Venezuela reached this point:

Venezuela at a glance

Venezuela is home to about 28.4 million people, making it the 53rd most populous country in the world.

About 85 percent of Venezuela’s population lives in urban areas in the north of the country, a coastal mountainous region where most of the country’s major cities are located. The most populous cities are the capital, Caracas (3 million people), Maracaibo (2.4 million) and Valencia (2 million).

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According to the latest World Bank data, Venezuela’s life expectancy is about 73 years with a fertility rate of two, meaning each woman on average has two children. This is much higher than in many Western nations, where fertility rates are far below the replacement rate of 2.1, the number of children a woman must have if a population is to remain at current levels.

Venezuela’s gross domestic product (GDP) stands at $108.5bn, placing it among the smallest economies in Latin America despite its vast natural resources.

Nearly 90 percent of Venezuela’s population is Christian, primarily Catholic.

Venezuela gained independence from Spain in 1811. Spanish is the official language of Venezuela, but several Indigenous languages are also spoken.

How big is Venezuela?

By area, Venezuela is the 32nd largest country in the world and South America’s sixth largest country, covering 916,445sq km (353,841sq miles). Venezuela is roughly the same size as Nigeria or Pakistan and about 1.5 times the size of the US state of Texas.

Its landscape is made up of mountains, namely the Andes to the west and the Montanoso coastal range to the north and east; tropical jungles, including the Amazon rainforest; river plains; and coastal plains.

Political leadership

Venezuela’s political landscape has historically swung between democratic rule, populism and hardline rule. Since the end of military rule in 1958, alternating governments have taken power in the country, largely led by two major parties, Democratic Action, a social democratic party, and the Christian democratic COPEI party.

By the 1980s, the country’s oil-dependent economy began to falter. The global oil glut triggered a severe downturn, forcing Venezuela to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and adopt unpopular austerity measures. Economic decline, corruption and growing public disillusionment with traditional parties weakened the two-party system through the 1990s.

This turmoil paved the way for the rise of Hugo Chavez, a former military officer who had led a failed coup in 1992. Capitalising on public anger towards what many Venezuelans saw as a corrupt political order, Chavez was elected president in 1999 after he promised to abolish the old political system.

Once in power, he launched what he called the Bolivarian Revolution, named after Simon Bolivar, the South American independence leader. Chavez redirected oil revenues into social programmes that expanded access to housing, education, healthcare and military spending instead of going directly to the political elite via a patronage system. While Chavez’s populist government initially reduced poverty and inequality, Venezuela’s unsustainable spending and deep reliance on oil left the country vulnerable.

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By the mid-2010s, an oil bust and tightening US sanctions had triggered a major economic crisis, leading to one of the largest mass emigrations in the world.

After Chavez’s death in 2013, Maduro, his handpicked successor, ascended to the presidency and consolidated Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela into the country’s dominant political force.

Venezuela’s economy and trading partners

Venezuela funds the majority of its government budget from oil revenues. In 2024, oil export revenues and taxes paid by the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, were estimated to make up about 58 percent of state income.

The country’s economy has been deeply turbulent for more than four decades, and its GDP shrank by more than 70 percent from 2014 to 2024. However, in 2023, US President Joe Biden’s administration eased some sanctions on oil and gas, leading to an annual growth rate of 5 percent in 2023.

Government officials forecast 8 percent growth in 2024. According to Trading Economics, third-quarter growth this year was 8.7 percent year-on-year, driven largely by a rise in oil activity.

In 2023, crude petroleum accounted for half of Venezuela’s exports. The US was Venezuela’s largest trading partner, buying half of Venezuela’s exports, mostly crude petroleum.

Petroleum coke is the second biggest export from Venezuela, accounting for more than 7 percent of overall exports.

In 2023, China was Venezuela’s second largest trading partner, accounting for almost 10 percent of its total exports, half of which were petroleum coke.

Spain was Venezuela’s third largest trading partner in 2023, accounting for about 9 percent of its exports, mostly crude petroleum.

World’s largest proven oil reserves

Venezuela is home to the largest known reserves of oil, estimated at 303 billion barrels (Bbbl) as of 2023.

However, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, Venezuela exported just $4.05bn worth of crude oil in 2023. This is far below other major exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn) and Russia ($122bn).

Venezuela’s oil reserves are concentrated primarily in the Orinoco Belt, a vast region in the eastern part of the country that stretches across roughly 55,000sq km (21,235sq miles).

The Orinoco Belt holds extra heavy crude oil, which is highly viscous and dense, making it much harder and more expensive to extract than conventional crude. Producing oil from this region requires advanced techniques, such as steam injection and blending with lighter crudes to make it marketable.

Because of its density and sulphur content, extra heavy crude usually sells at a discount compared with lighter crudes.

In addition to crude oil, Venezuela exports smaller volumes of refined petroleum products, such as petrol and diesel, but its potential to increase these is limited due to ageing refinery infrastructure, technical challenges and sanctions.

The migration crisis

About 2015, Venezuela’s net migration dipped sharply with a record 1.4 million people emigrating in 2018.

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Over the past decade, Maduro has tightened his grip on power, eroding democratic institutions through censorship, restricted internet access and the persecution of political opponents.

Combined with sanctions and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis has deepened, leading to severe shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. Half the population still lives in poverty although the rate has slightly improved since 2021. Meanwhile, the inflation rate for 2025 is estimated at 180 percent, according to figures from Statista, meaning people are grappling with a severe cost-of-living crisis.

The majority of those leaving Venezuela have fled to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said the economic crisis has been “driven by devastating policies and a kleptocracy that has characterised the political landscape during the last 20 years”.

What is the unemployment rate?

Venezuela’s unemployment rate stood at 5.5 percent in 2024. Unemployment averaged 10 percent from 1999 to 2024, reaching an all-time high of 21 percent in 2003.

How equipped is Venezuela’s military?

Venezuela’s armed forces are mainly responsible for protecting the country, its borders, internal security and counternarcotics operations. However, according to Military Balance, an open-source documentation of military forces and spending around the world, Venezuela’s economic decline has weakened its military’s modernisation efforts.

As of 2018, the armed forces had 123,000 active personnel and 8,000 reservists.

Venezuela maintains close military ties with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, relying on them for weapons and training. Joint military exercises with these countries have taken place in recent years in China and Russia, most recently the 2022 International Army Games, hosted by Russia.

US attacks in the Caribbean

The US military has carried out at least 21 deadly strikes on vessels off Venezuela’s coast, in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since September 2, marking the most intense American military activity in Latin America since the US invasion of Panama in 1989.

The strikes, conducted under the authority of the US Southern Command, have killed at least 83 people, according to statements by US President Donald Trump and senior US defence officials.

The map below shows the approximate locations of these attacks, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. Most of the attacks occurred close to the Venezuelan coast and in international waters, raising questions about the legality of the US use of force, especially when no imminent threat was present.

Drug routes into Venezuela

Trump has defended the US attacks by saying the US is dismantling drug-trafficking routes from Venezuela, including the flow of cocaine and fentanyl.

However, data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show that most cocaine is not produced in Venezuela and the country plays a minor role in the drugs trade, mostly as a transit route. Some shipments and flights originate from or pass through Venezuela due to its border with Colombia. Venezuela has borders with three countries – Brazil to the south, Colombia to the west and Guyana to the east.

Colombia, Peru and Bolivia produce the vast majority of the world’s cocaine, accounting for an estimated 99 percent of global production, according to the UNODC.

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In addition, most cocaine bound for the US is smuggled via the Pacific, often passing through Central America and Mexico.