The fact is that Venezuela, while still pumping oil, no longer has a functioning economy. Seventeen years of nationalizations and confiscation of private industries, farms, cattle ranches, distribution companies, sugar mills, and even shopping malls have completely destroyed not only the local production, but the distribution networks necessary for the normal functioning of the economy.I believe hemisphere leaders are doing the right thing. Venezuela, as a country, is about to win the Darwin Award. It's won by people who do things so stupid as to die as a result.
The leaders of all countries in the hemisphere, except for Castro’s Cuba, are meeting now in Washington DC. These leaders will be remembered as those responsible for the first mass famine in the Americas, and the world will not forgive them.
The people of Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez and then Nicholas Maduro, knowing what policies they'd follow and they now reap the "rewards" of those failed policies. Mass stupidity not only does, but should, have very negative consequences.
After hungry Venezuelans have hung Maduro and the Chavistas from lampposts, as Italians did with Mussolini, then it will be time to bring food and medical aid. Anything provided before a dramatic change in government (and punishment of malefactors) would merely be rewarding error.
