Venezuela’s Inflation Tops 500% as US Pressure Intensifies

Inflation in Venezuela surged sharply, surpassing 500%, as U.S. President Donald Trump escalates efforts to financially isolate the socialist government in Caracas.

The inflation rate reached 556% over the 12 months through December 17, up from 219% at the end of June and 45% in 2024, according to a weekly index compiled by Bloomberg News.

While simple in construction, as it tracks the price of a single item, a cup of coffee sold in Caracas, the index is considered one of the most reliable real-time indicators of inflation in a country that largely stopped publishing official economic data nearly a decade ago amid a deepening economic collapse.

For months, Trump has intensified pressure on Venezuela in a bid, in part, to oust long-time socialist leader Nicolás Maduro. On Tuesday, the U.S. president ordered a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, a move expected to further choke the country’s energy sector and cut off the government’s main source of hard currency.

“This shock will be unprecedented,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Venezuela’s inflation has been far higher at various points in recent years. Bloomberg’s index, launched in 2016, recorded annual inflation rates exceeding 100,000% during the peak of the country’s hyperinflation crisis.

Despite the latest surge, many Venezuelans have been partially shielded from rising prices. Frustrated by the rapid erosion of the bolívar’s value, a growing number of companies now pay salaries and charge customers in U.S. dollars.

An estimated 90% of private-sector workers are now paid in dollars, a shift that has helped preserve purchasing power for those able to access hard currency.

However, for public-sector employees, pensioners, and others who continue to earn in bolívars, accelerating inflation represents another blow in a prolonged crisis that has already driven millions of Venezuelans to flee the country in search of economic stability.