There is not an embargo on Venezuela. The government still sells oil to the US thru CITGO. There's still (but a lot less than before, mostly of geopolitical reasons) trade with the US. What is happening is that the US government thru the Department of Treasury imposed economic sanctions to several VE government officials accused of money laundering public funds to buy properties and having funds saved in bank accounts up there. And also, there's a restriction for US entities or individuals to buy debt from here. And a court decision to disallow CITGO to be sold until the VE government pays debt.

So it's not an embargo. We still have trade with the US.

The main crisis started at the end of 2015. Oil prices fell sharply, and all subsized services started to crash (colleges, government hospitals, government supermarkets, oil industry, etc), prices of everything started to raise faster. Government imposed heavier price controls and started to put sellers on jail, and cause of that scarcity worsened. Then national food supply was changed with imported food from México (bad quality food, it's recent news), Brasil and Guyana. And it was also price controlled. Well, hyperinflation came. The sanctions were imposed just a year ago after all the killings due to protests against the government.

I'm not naive to not know that all of this is a geopolitical issue. There is a trade war ongoing between China and the US. And to pressure Venezuela for a change affects China interests in this region. They have a high influence in some oil production, with joint ventures with the VE government and also in the mining industry.