President Joe Biden starts to lift sanctions on Venezuela

Things have changed in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. Traffic jams, absent for years, now clog up roads. Political posters, which used to loom over the city preaching grim mantras such as “socialism or death”, have been replaced by advertisements for whisky or cosmetic surgery. The buzz of a motorcycle, once something to fear in the notoriously violent capital, is more likely to herald the arrival of a food delivery than an armed robbery.

Residents, particularly the richer ones, make a sardonic observation: “Venezuela se arregló!” (or, the country “is fixed”, as someone may be with plastic surgery). But despite the veneer of better times, which followed the government’s decision in 2019 to relax price controls and allow trading in the American dollar, the country’s underlying troubles are far from solved. Over the past decade its GDP has shrunk by 70%, and around 7m people, or a quarter of the population, have left the country.