Window displays advertising 30% discounts and shoes for $20 were not enough to draw throngs of bargain hunters this Black Friday to a popular mall in Venezuela’s capital. Even the newly opened H&M store was virtually empty in the morning.
The country’s suffocating economy, Venezuelans said, not the threats of U.S. military action, is to blame for Friday’s stark contrast to other post-pandemic years when enthusiastic shoppers formed lines outside stores. Years of experiences riding the twists and turns of their country’s complex crisis have taught them to focus on their immediate individual needs, like buying food or medicines, and not the collective long term, like a possible military strike.
