World

Colombian Pres. Might Have Saved Venezuela By Reopening Border

REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
JP Carroll National Security & Foreign Affairs Reporter
Font Size:

Two countries, Colombia and Venezuela, will reopen their shared border following a new agreement Thursday.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and his Venezuelan counterpart President Nicolas Maduro, have decided to open five parts of the border for pedestrian crossing. Most of the foot traffic will come from Venezuela into Colombia, as residents of the socialist country will try and buy all sorts of basic goods, like toilet paper. Many Venezuelans are so desperate for food that they have resorted to robbing trucks filled with chickens and dumpster-diving.

Venezuela has seen its economy decline sharply in recent years, particularly after the March 2013 death of President Hugo Chavez. The oil-rich country is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and has 24.8 percent of the world’s proven crude oil reserves, the largest of any country.

Despite its immense oil wealth, Venezuela has severe supply and demand issues, recently running out of beer, for example. Keeping the lights on is also a challenge, with frequent government-mandated power outages. The International Monetary Fund expects inflation to reach over 700 percent by the end of 2016, which would make it the worst in the world.

Santos clarified the border arrangement, saying that “we will open the border in an orderly manner, a controlled manner and in a gradual manner.” The border will be reopened Saturday, Aug. 20. People will be allowed to travel between the two countries at the five designated checkpoints between the hours of 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Colombia Time (COT).

The genesis of new Colombian efforts at diplomatic cooperation comes in the wake of tens of thousands of Venezuelans rushing into Colombia in July, when the Maduro regime temporarily allowed border crossings. Colombia claims that on Saturday, July 16, over 35,000 Venezuelans traveled to their country, presumably looking to buy food. Over 88,000 people were recorded as having traveled from Venezuela into Colombia at the weekend’s conclusion.

Before the temporary July border re-opening, the Venezuelan-Colombian border had been shuttered for almost a year at Maduro’s command. As a result of that desperate weekend, Colombia decided to no longer green-light temporary border re-openings and instead, Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maria Angela Holguin said, “Let’s work so that the opening, the next opening, is definitive.”

Follow JP on Twitter

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel