Venezuela was ruled in default on a missed interest payment by S&P Global Ratings, pushing the cash-strapped South American country and its creditors one step closer to a reckoning of its $150 billion debt load.

The decision by S&P, one of the two main U.S. rating companies along with Moody’s Investors Service, capped off a day in which Venezuela promised to keep paying its debts at a conference in Caracas that was attended by few of the Western bondholders that are likely to be hit by a default.

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