Latin America & the Caribbean

The political circumstances leading up to economic collapse in Venezuela have been happening for over a decade now, but the situation has greatly deteriorated in recent years because of plummeting crude prices, environmental factors and the failures of President Nicolas Maduro's government to address the country's woes.

The hemisphere has to get involved [in Venezuela's crisis] because there has been a breakdown in democratic order. Maduro is using the tools of democracy to have a dictatorship.

The ongoing attitude is that the [Venezuelan] government will do everything possible to remain in power.