Venezuela Calls in Oil Debt It Once Traded Away for Literal Beans

At the height of Venezuela’s oil go-go days, tankers fanned out across the Caribbean, handing out 200,000 barrels a day to a constellation of small, mostly poor, islands. The fact that those countries racked up huge debts and paid part of the bill with things like black beans and peanuts mattered little to Hugo Chavez as he parlayed the bonanza into global fame as the leader of what he called 21st century socialism.

Two decades later, impoverished and desperate for cash, Venezuela is trying to collect old debts from the Petrocaribe program. Last month, it received a $500 million payment from Haiti — the poorest country in the hemisphere — to cancel what had been a $2.3 billion debt, according to documents seen by Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter. It’s working on similar transactions with other nations, the people said.