ABSTRACT
Each year we, the countries which produce coffee, meat, tin, copper, iron or petroleum, have been handing over a larger amount of our products in order to obtain imports of machinery and other manufactured goods, and this has resulted in a constant and growing outflow of capital and an impoverishment of our countries. ... To cite the particular case of Venezuela, petroleum prices showed a steady decline for many years, while our country was obliged to purchase goods from the United States at ever-higher prices, which, day after day, restricted even further the possibilities of development and well-being for Venezuelans. The establishment of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was a direct consequence of the developed countries' use of a policy of outrageously low prices for our raw materials as a weapon of economic oppression.
