Yup. It’s a pretty direct connection. The retailers have to import these goods because Chavez had wiped out a lot of the domestic industry by nationalizing everything, and the price controls means they don’t have enough capital to import, so the consumers (and retailers) are screwed.
Unless and until the government wises up to the distorted market they’ve created, it’s only going to get worse, and there will be food riots by summer.
That is my prediction as well.
Communists never "wise up" because they are never directly affected by the misery they cause. Around 20% real unemployment in the USA with medical coverage being cancelled for thousands of citizens but Michelle and the girls are off on their, what is it, their fourth or fifth vacation just this year? I'd suspect the higher reaches of the Venezuelan government are similarly immune to shortages of the basic necessities of life. And there are always the Kulaks, the Koch brothers, and other class enemies around to blame.
This will sort out when Sean Penn's friends are cornered and strung up from lamp posts. I am hoping he's in-country when it happens so he can hang with them in socialist solidarity.