A blockade aimed at ravaging Venezuela’s economy. A fiery Venezuelan leader known for his unusual dance moves at times of distress. A U.S. government seeking to assert military supremacy in Latin America.
Yes, these descriptions refer to the crisis now engulfing Venezuela.
But they also apply to a military campaign against Venezuela at the dawn of the 20th century, which produced a sea change in U.S. relations with Latin America.
The Venezuela crisis of 1902-03 focused a global spotlight on Cipriano Castro, a hard-partying dictator known as the “Lion of the Andes.” His rule in Venezuela was marked by a persistent state of belligerence toward the great powers of the era.
When patience finally wore thin over Venezuela’s unpaid debts, Germany, Britain and Italy resorted to what was known then as gunboat diplomacy, using their naval power to exert pressure in a bid to make Venezuela honor its obligations.
“It’s the closest analogue in many ways to what is happening today,” said Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver.
The similarities between the two blockades emphasize how features of the current standoff, like Nicolás Maduro’s anti-imperialist language and President Trump’s drive to assert U.S. dominance over the Western Hemisphere, recall earlier times.
In the first Venezuela crisis, the blockade unleashed a wave of anti-German vitriol in the American press, based largely on fears about Germany’s rapid expansion of its naval fleet and the ambitions of Wilhelm II, the ill-tempered kaiser presiding over Germany.
Initially somewhat blasé over European efforts to collect debts, President Theodore Roosevelt took note of this sentiment. The United States, fresh off its capture of Puerto Rico and the Philippines as spoils in the Spanish-American War, was on the rise.
“The United States had a sense that events were running in its favor, much like the Chinese see themselves today,” said Jack Thompson, a lecturer in American studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Roosevelt ordered the largest concentration of American naval power ever seen in the Caribbean up to that point, signaling that the United States was prepared to fight to prevent Germany from gaining a foothold in the region.
Germany, along with Britain and Italy, then agreed to resolve the dispute with Venezuela through arbitration, effectively backing down in the face of ascendant U.S. military strength.
The next year, the American president turbocharged the Monroe Doctrine, which had warned European powers against further colonization in the Americas, by adding his own “Roosevelt Corollary” to that foreign policy cornerstone.
This, stating the United States had a right to exert “police power” in the Americas when it found cases of wrongdoing, led to decades of military interventions, coups and outright invasions of Latin American countries.
In November, President Trump put forth his own “Trump Corollary.” It asserts that his administration should intervene in the Americas to prevent mass migration to the United States and ensure a hemisphere “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets.”
Just as Roosevelt’s military buildup was a message to Germany, a rising power at the time, Mr. Trump’s blockade of sanctioned oil tankers in Venezuela targets China, which consumes 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil exports and has made huge economic inroads throughout Latin America.
Differences also abound between the two blockades; they are 122 years apart, after all.
One involves Venezuela’s economy. Civil wars and uprisings had ravaged Venezuela, but at the start of the 20th century the country was relatively closed to global trade and did not need imports to feed its population.
Now, Venezuela relies overwhelmingly on oil, which accounts for more than 90 percent of export income.
While experts say some of Venezuela’s oil revenues are lost to corruption, Mr. Maduro’s government needs the proceeds from this trade to keep the armed forces functioning and to import necessities like food.
Another obvious contrast involves the United States, which is no longer a middling power but a nuclear-armed colossus. And after decades in which the United States prioritized objectives in the Middle East and Asia, Mr. Trump is refocusing attention on the Western Hemisphere.
His intimidation campaign against Venezuela is just the start of this shift, the Trump administration has made clear, part of an effort to reassert U.S. supremacy in a region where leaders have long placed national sovereignty and nonintervention among their core values.
Still, other parallels between the two Venezuela blockades show history, if not quite repeating, then rhyming a bit.
Take Cipriano Castro, the Venezuelan leader at the heart of the 1903 crisis. Like Mr. Maduro today, he cast his presidency as both a line of defense against a new wave of colonialism and a repudiation of wealthy Venezuelan elites aligned with foreign interests.
Standing just 5 feet 5 inches, he often wore high-heeled boots and an extravagant plumed hat to appear taller, as well as oversized military uniforms bedecked with medals and enormous gold epaulets.
“He has the vanity of a peacock, the temper of a tiger, and the habits of a satyr,” a British diplomat once wrote about Castro.
When bankers refused to roll over Venezuela’s debt after Castro seized power in 1899, he had them put in shackles and paraded through Caracas. The next day, they agreed to finance his government.
“It’s kind of tongue in cheek, but I call that the most successful debt restructuring in Venezuelan history,” said Mr. Rodríguez, the economist.
Mr. Maduro has been breaking into song and dance routines amid the current standoff with Washington, while Castro became known during the 1903 blockade for hosting balls lasting from sunset until the following morning, according to accounts from the time.
At one point, when British and German warships were seizing Venezuelan naval ships, he hosted a ball at Miraflores Palace, then the official presidential mansion in Caracas, quaffing champagne and dancing for hours with a rotating cast of mistresses as generals waited in the halls with urgent cables.
The historical record does not always capture Roosevelt in the best light during the Venezuela crisis. He loathed Castro and called him an “unspeakably villainous little monkey,” reflecting the racism that imbued his own views and American politics at the time.
Could the outcome of the first Venezuela blockade yield any clues as to how the current standoff might possibly end?
It may be too early to tell.
Castro held on to power for a few years until his failing health (brought on by “debauchery,” U.S. diplomats claimed) led him to seek medical care in Europe in 1908.
His right-hand man, Juan Vicente Gómez, then seized power in a bloodless coup supported by the United States. Castro remained in exile until his death in 1924.
Gómez ruled Venezuela with an iron fist, amassing an immense fortune while using spies and agents to control the nation through force and terror. He granted concessions to U.S. oil companies, kept good relations with world powers and wiped out Venezuela’s foreign debt.
Gómez ruled until 1935 when he died peacefully in his bed at the age of 78.
Simon Romero is a Times correspondent covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He is based in Mexico City.
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