From Collapse to Confrontation: The U.S.–Venezuela Standoff
Virtual, Members-only Briefing
Tuesday, December 16, 2025| 6:00 PM – 7:15 PM ET
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have escalated, with the Trump administration reviving a “maximum pressure” strategy, labeling Venezuelan criminal networks as foreign terrorist organizations, deploying a major military presence in the Caribbean, and framing drug trafficking and mass migration as national security threats. These developments are rooted in Venezuela’s long economic collapse and political polarization: after Hugo Chávez built a system dependent on oil revenue, the 2014 crash in global oil prices triggered one of the steepest economic contractions recorded outside of wartime in the last fifty years. Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian rule, combined with hyperinflation, shortages, and soaring crime, has driven millions to flee and created fertile ground for drug cartels. These twin crises, organized crime and mass exodus, now define Venezuela’s troubled relationship with the United States. How did Venezuela and the U.S. get to where it is today? What is the Trump administration’s real objective in Venezuela? And could negotiation, rather than military escalation, offer a viable path forward?
Join us on Tuesday, December 16th, from 6:00 to 7:15 PM ET, for a conversation with Professor Francisco Rodríguez, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a faculty affiliate at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs and the author of The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012–2020 when we explore how Venezuela reached its breaking point, the future of US-Venezuela relations, and what a realistic path toward stability and renewal would require.
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SPEAKER:
Francisco Rodríguez
Francisco Rodríguez is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. A native of Venezuela, he is also the founder of Oil for Venezuela, a non-profit organization focused on finding solutions to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree in economics from Venezuela’s Universidad Católica Andrés Bello.
Rodríguez has taught economics and Latin American studies at the University of Maryland at College Park, the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), and Wesleyan University. He has held prominent positions in the public and private sector and international organizations, including Head of the Economic and Financial Advisory of the Venezuelan National Assembly (2000-2004), Head of the Research Team of the United Nations’ Human Development Report Office (2008-2011) and Chief Andean Economist of Bank of America (2011-2016). Rodríguez was also a Greenleaf Visiting Professor at Tulane University’s Stone Center for Latin American Studies, a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame and an International Affairs Fellow in International Economics of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rodríguez is the author of four books and more than sixty research articles. His research has appeared in the American Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Growth, Journal of Macroeconomics, Journal of Politics and World Development, among other peer-reviewed journals. He is a frequent contributor to Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, The New York Times, Americas Quarterly, Foreign Policy and The Washington Post, among other influential publications. His most recent book, The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020, was published in Spring 2025 by University of Notre Dame Press.
THIS SESSION IS FREE FOR NETWORK 20/20’s MEMBERS
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engin akyurt from Unsplash
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