Venezuela

                  Despite being the world’s most oil rich country, Venezuela has been faced with economic collapse, hyperinflation, and skyrocketing crime rates in recent decades. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Venezuela is a petrostate. A petrostate is a country that is nearly completely reliant on fossil fuel production, power is concentrated to a small minority, and corruption is widespread. Fossil fuels comprise 95% of Venezuela’s exports, 25% of its GDP, and 58% of the government’s budget, making the country’s economy and government heavily reliant on commodity prices. Therefore, when oil prices dropped from over $100 a barrel in 2014 to under $30 in 2016, Venezuela’s economy took a massive hit. Before the 2014 price drop, however, Venezuela’s economy had already been weakened by the country’s previous president, Hugo Chávez. Chávez made multiple moves that hurt the country’s oil production and profitability including firing thousands of experienced workers from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-owned fossil fuel company, and providing subsidized oil to nearby countries such as Cuba. Additionally, Chávez took steps towards consolidating power such as ending term limits and nationalizing businesses and assets, moving the country further toward authoritarianism and inviting heavy U.S. sanctions in 2006. Between the weakened work force, exporting subsidized oil, and U.S. sanctions, oil production had weakened to a point that the country was unable to absorb the 2014-2016 price shock and recover.