Venezuela rejects suspension from Mercosur trade bloc

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez speaks at a meeting in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 2, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Venezuela has lambasted its suspension from the South American economic bloc Mercosur as a “coup” launched against Caracas. 

“This is a coup d'etat to Mercosur and constitutes a very grave attack on Venezuela,” said Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez at a press conference on Friday, adding that she does not recognize the action and considers it as illegal.

Rodriguez’s remarks came hours after foreign ministers of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, in a joint letter addressed to the Venezuelan Forging Ministry, suspended the oil-rich country from the bloc, arguing that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s leftist administration has missed a December 1 deadline to comply with the pact’s democratic standards and trade bylaws.

Mercosur’s member states, led by Brazil, added that Caracas would be required to renegotiate its membership, four years after its membership became effective in the sub-regional bloc.

The new conservative, market-friendly administrations across the region are at considerable odds with Maduro’s crackdown on the opposition. Recently, Brazil and Argentina even spearheaded an effort to prevent Venezuela from taking its turn as the bloc’s rotating leader.  

However, Venezuela insists that it is still the group's rotating president, while Argentina is now slated to take the 25-year-old group’s six-month presidency.

Rodriguez had earlier protested against the decision, calling it a “null and void action sustained by the law of the jungle of some officials who are destroying Mercosur.”

Tension between Caracas and its Mercosur partners soared after Argentinians elected Mauricio Macri as their president in 2015 and Brazil’s parliament ousted former president Dilma Rousseff following an impeachment and elected Michel Temer in August.

The right-leaning pair replaced leftist presidents and commenced their attacks on embattled Maduro after they assumed power. Macri has accused Maduro of holding “political prisoners,” while Temer has slammed the Venezuelan government as “authoritarian.”

The fresh blow to Maduro comes as his country is increasingly descending into a crippling economic crisis.

The slump in oil prices in 2014 triggered a deepening economic crisis in Venezuela, leading to severe shortages of basic supplies and soaring inflation, ravaged by rising social and political turmoil.

While the opposition blames Maduro’s economic management for the crisis, he rejects such allegations, describing the economic meltdown as a US-backed capitalist conspiracy.