Think-Tanks'Press

After years of economic mismanagement and political strife, Venezuela finds itself in the midst of a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis, due in part to an unsustainable loans-for-oil debtor relationship with China.

The heyday of Chavez’s political dominance during the first decade of the 2000s coincided with Beijing’s dramatic upscaling of its commercial and diplomatic relationship with Caracas.

Over the past decade, China has become Venezuela’s key overseas financial lifeline, providing the oil-dependent economy with over $60 billion in oil-backed loans and tens of billions more in other contracts and investment deals.

Ultimately, Venezuela is faced with the choice of defaulting on its loan and oil shipment agreements or further curtailing government spending on domestic social and humanitarian programs in order to service its debts to China and other creditors.

China may view the chaotic status quo in Venezuela as a safer bet for having its loans repaid and ensuring future oil shipments—not to mention preserving its close state-to-state ties—than a transition to a different, possibly opposition-led government.

During the G20 summit in Hamburg in July, Beijing unexpectedly opened a new frontier of Internet censorship: users of the social network Weibo were prevented from sharing and commenting on posts mentioning Vladimir Putin.

The Financial Times first reported on the story on July 10, concluding that the censorship signaled a golden age of Sino-Russian relations. As Chinese journalist Cai Shenkun told the FT, Putin is the first foreign leader to have the privilege of being shielded from criticism on the Chinese Internet.

Some experts agreed that the ban on undesirable comments speaks to the state of Sino-Russian relations and the unique character of the two countries’ partnership, and that it showed Beijing’s desire not to damage bilateral relations. That said, they could not explain why interest in censoring information about Putin was so short-lived and coincided perfectly with the G20 summit.

With this in mind, the Putin censorship appears to have been an attempt to draw the Chinese people’s attention away from Russian-American talks ( the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump ). It’s no mystery why this was done. In the year of a party conference, commentary on any domestic and international developments must focus on Xi Jinping. Preparing a media strategy for the G20 summit, Chinese propaganda organs did all that they could to ensure that talks between Putin and Trump did not eclipse China’s participation in the G20 summit meeting.

Tensions between France and Italy soared in July following the French government’s decision to nationalise shipbuilder Stx/Chantier de l’Atlantique rather than give Italy’s Fincantieri a majority stake, thus reneging on an agreement between Italy and France’s previous government. Diplomatic relations had already been tested earlier that week when President Macron organised a peace conference on Libya without inviting the Italian government that considers itself a key player on the Libyan dossier. The two events, which are unrelated, created a perfect storm among Italians, resulting in some public spats and a queue of French ministers flying to Rome to patch up relations.

Current Franco-Italian disagreements recall the events of 2011, when France and the United Kingdom took the lead in a military intervention in Libya. The Italian government at the time was hampered by political troubles at home was unable to fulfil what could have been a “natural” mediating role for Italy.

The same year as the Libya intervention, French investment in Italy also contributed to the perception of a French conquest of the peninsula.

Contemporary tensions reopened old wounds among Italians who see the French state as protectionist and nationalist, recalling the 2006 attempt of Italian state-controlled energy company ENEL to take over the French-based utility company Suez. The attempt was blocked by the French government, which instead created the state controlled GDF-Suez group in order to keep the company in French hands.

Deportation costs: In April of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that the average cost of a deportation, also referred to as a removal, was $10,854 in FY 2016, including apprehension, detention, and processing.

Based on the description provided by ICE, the estimated removal costs do not include expenditures for the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which is part of the Department of Justice. Though it has a few other responsibilities, the overwhelming share of EOIR’s workload is for removals. In FY 2016, EOIR’s budget was $420.3 million and there were 240,255 removals in that year, which would mean that EOIR’s cost per removal was $1,749.

Costs of illegal immigrants: There is a total lifetime fiscal drain of $746.3 billion. This assumes 11.43 million illegal immigrants are in the country based on the U.S. government’s most recent estimate.

The above cost estimates are only for the original illegal immigrant, and exclude descendants. Using the National Academy of Sciences net cost estimates for the descendants adds $16,998 to the net fiscal drain.

During the second term of the Obama administration, policies prohibiting agents from arresting aliens became increasingly stringent. A recent Government Accountability Office report found that the backlog of pending cases that are carried over from the prior year in immigration court more than doubled between 2006 and 2015.

The Trump administration has curtailed some of these policies. Moreover, the number of arrests by ICE has increased substantially in the first few months of the new administration even though the administration has yet to implement the president’s directive to increase the Enforcement and Removal Operations agent corps.

A significant number of Canadians—an estimated 63,459 people—may have received treatment outside of the country in 2016. This is a significant increase from the 45,619 who were estimated to have travelled abroad in 2015 and also higher than the 52,513 who were estimated to have travelled abroad in 2014.

Increases between 2015 and 2016 in the estimated number of patients going outside Canada for treatment were seen in seven provinces: British Columbia (10,315 to 15,372), Alberta (4,616 to 9,067), Ontario (22,352 to 26,513), Manitoba (702 to 2,052), Quebec (3,360 to 4,603), Saskatchewan (from 712 to 1,888), and Nova Scotia (1,466 to 2,438).

Some patients may have been sent out of country by the public health care system due to a lack of available resources or the fact that some procedures or equipment are not provided in their home jurisdiction. Others may have chosen to leave Canada in response to concerns about quality, seeking more advanced health care facilities, more state-of-the-art medical technologies, or better outcomes.

Another explanation may relate to the long waiting times that patients are forced endure in Canada’s health care system. For example, in 2016, patients could expect to wait 10.6 weeks for medically necessary treatment after seeing a specialist.

The EU has decided to fully integrate Moldova into its single energy market. According to laws passed in the last year, Chisinau must comply with the norms set out in the Third Energy Package by 2020. These norms provide for splitting gas sales and transportation, which will most probably force Gazprom out of Moldova’s gas transport system.

The Democratic Party of Moldova, which holds a majority in parliament, is fully pro-Western. Because of the current confrontation with Russia, it is important for the United States and, to some extent, the EU to ensure that parliament remains oriented toward the West even though it sees Moldova as a “captured state” in which power is concentrated in the hands of the oligarch and Democratic Party leader Vlad Plahotniuc. Without a parliamentary majority, Igor Dodon will have limited options unless he works with the Democratic Party.

The history of Russian-Moldovan negotiations in the framework of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation suggests that a so-called “integration of integrations” is the way forward: Moscow is now hoping to find a way to let Moldova enjoy free trade agreements with both the EU and the EAEU.