Long gone are the days of empty supermarket shelves. The devastating sight of long lines and shelves without food or supplies; of entire aisles filled with only one product to conceal the drought, are no more than the bitter memory of Venezuela’s years of shortage. At present, it is possible to choose from one or another nationally produced brands of pasta, for instance, as well as a wide range of imported brands. Turkish brands are particularly prominent.

Since 2017, when the United States’ economic sanctions were strengthened, shelves have been filled with Turkish food products like pasta and wheat flour, which had traditionally been imported from the US. These brands became a regular part of Venezuelans’ diets.

At first sight, the packs of spaghetti and rigatoni with “weird names” might pass as other, Venezuelan made, pasta brands; or even globalized Italian brands. However, the phrases printed on the back of the packaging leave no room for confusion: türkiye'de üretilmiştir (made in Turkey). “These are not as good as the national brands. They are a little sticky, but I get these because they’re cheaper”, says a sixty-year-old lady standing near a shelf filled with bar soap, body lotion, and shampoo, all also with a Turkish brand.

Turkish pasta and wheat flour can be found not only in small food stores, but also in traditional supermarkets and the so-called bodegones (convenience stores that sell imported products) that have suddenly appeared with suspicious intensity all over ruined towns and cities of Venezuela over the past five years.

Turkish spaghetti are even a fixed component in the food boxes subsidized by the CLAP program, even though President Nicolas Maduro assured in March 2021 that the boxed contained “0% imported goods”. The President’s statement was disproved by the official announcement of the arrival from Turkey of 8 thousand tons of pasta for the CLAP boxes last July.

This peculiar alliance with Turkey does not stand alone. As Venezuelan relations with the US have dwindled and Maduro’s international discredit grows thanks to his anti-democratic practices, the government has begun to open to new options, seeking commercial and ideological partners. In several cases, Maduro has relied on relations promoted by former President Hugo Chavez. But he has also made good on relations forged while Maduro acted as the nation’s Foreign Minister between 2006 and 2012.

No matter the geographic distance, during the past five years Venezuela has strengthened its alliances with nations that share its aversion against the US: authoritarian governments whose heads of State have been too long in power and have high rates of corruption. A revision of the available official documents, such as official journals and press releases from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allows to estimate that during the chavismo era Venezuela has entered into some 1,237 conventions, treaties, and cooperation agreements with these nations, worth an amount close to $173 billion. However, the shadiness surrounding these arrangements makes it impossible to discern the true extent of the amounts of money in play.

Omar Zambrano, an economist and founder of Anova consultants, published an investigation report that showed that the effect of the sanctions has been opposite to the outcome expected regarding the availability of goods and services. This as a consequence of the liberalization of the economy that has ensued since then, paired with the dollarization and the end of the exchange controls. All of it precisely thanks to the alliances weaved by Maduro’s Administration.

“When you look at what happened with the import of food products and medicine to Venezuela, contrary to what you may expect, these items are now more available than before the sanctions were imposed. It is a counterintuitive result, but it is the consequence of the economic liaison with allies like Turkey, Iran, China, India, and Russia”, stated Zambrano.

Zambrano expressed that the economic alliance with these countries has been key to Maduro for three reasons, the first of which is the capacity to commercialize essential goods and services, particularly food and medicine.

Aside from alleviating the shortage, Zambrano explains, these alliances have allowed Maduro to use a correspondent bank financial system that does not depend on traditional finance circuits.

“Just being able to transfer funds into Venezuela –even if just partially– via the financial systems of Russia, Iran, and the Arab Emirates, has served as a substitute for the financial operations they used to run through New York and London”, said the Economics expert.

The experience in avoiding the economic sanctions is the third factor identified by Zambrano. “These are countries with a long tradition of sanctions, particularly Iran and Syria. They have devised a whole new way of doing business and transactions to avoid the siege of the restrictions. That technology has been proven, and Venezuela has been learning from its partners.”

Douglas Farah, a researcher from IBI Consultants who specializes in Latin American Affairs, stated that Venezuela and its allies are guided by political-criminal interests. “With the exception of China and Russia, who are interested in the oil and sale of military equipment, there are no legitimate commercial relations among these nations. Their relationship is based on a policy of hatred against the US, and on the opportunities that this represents for countries that harbor transnational crime as a State instrument to avoid sanctions and launder money while using multilateral institutions such as the UN and the CELA for protection.”

Farah observed that whenever this group of governments boast about their democratic practices, their respect for freedom of expression, and their stance against corruption, they form a choir of voices that is necessary to consolidate authoritarianism. “No matter that China’s Imperialism far exceeds that of the US; that Russia can only be governed by Putin; that North Korea is the most repressive regime in the world; and Turkey is becoming a dictatorship, the narrative maintains that the US is humanity’s worst enemy”, he stated.

Vanessa Neumann, who in 2019 and 2020 acted as the official representative of the Venezuelan President (in charge) –Juan Guaido– for the United Kingdom and Ireland, has said that these allies not only seek to avoid sanctions, but also gain control of Venezuela’s many resources. “Russia, Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Venezuela share the premise of making the elites rich while the rest of the country drowns in poverty. They have demolished their own institutions; any and all forms of checks and balances among State branches; legal and fiscal independence; and are intent on continuing to support the destruction of Venezuelan institutions. The only way that they would stop supporting Maduro is if he became bad business for them”, she stated.