Japan isn’t the only country coping with a shortage of French fries in their McDonald’s restaurants right now. In Japan, restaurants are limiting quantities of fries for sale, but Venezuela isn’t coping with a McDonald’s fry shortage in that country very well.

In Japan, Venezuela, and probably other countries that we haven’t heard about yet, McDonald’s is running short on fries because of forces outside of its control. The company blames a contract dispute between shipping lines and dockworkers at the major ports in the west coast of the United States. That dispute has been going on for eight months now as both sides blame each other for a backlog of cargo and federal mediators have been called in to keep the goods flowing in both directions.

In Venezuela, though, it’s getting weird. A government-run media outlet, Telesur, wondered why McDonald’s is having such a hard time sourcing potatoes when other restaurants have them. The headline said that McDonald’s is part of an “economic war on Venezuela,” which also includes Japan or something.

McDonald’s restaurants have been serving fries made from local starchy tubers like yucca since September or so, but a restaurant that serves as a symbol of American mega-capitalism unable to export a basic side dish to fry-hungry Venezuelans is a powerful symbol. Of something. We’re not really sure what.

Venezuela’s bizarre response to McDonald’s running out of french fries [Washington Post]

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