“We Are Not A Danger To The United States”
Translation: “Please, Americans, vote for Obama so I can continue to get away with shit, especially working against your interests.”
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hopes prickly relations with the United States will improve when his archfoe George W. Bush leaves the Oval Office in January, the socialist leader said on Wednesday.
Chavez, who rejects traditional U.S. influence in Latin America and has called the U.S. president ‘the devil,’ denied OPEC-member Venezuela represented a danger to Washington.
“Whoever the next president is and whatever party they are from, we aspire, we are anxious, that 2009 start with a new level of relations,” Chavez said from an oilfield close to the Orinoco River.
In the past, Chavez has said a victory for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election could worsen relations between the two countries.
All candidates are wary of the outspoken critic of U.S foreign policy, although Democrat Barack Obama has said he could meet with him.
“We are not a danger to the United States, for the love of God, completely the opposite,” Chavez said.
The United States accuses Chavez of being soft on cocaine traffickers and of having ties to Marxist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia whom Washington classifies as terrorists.
It considers him a negative influence in Latin America, where he spends cash freely from an oil bonanza on aid projects and regional institutions that exclude the United States.
But Venezuela is one of the United States’ top crude suppliers and trade between the two countries hit a record $50 billion last year. The Venezuelan-American chamber of commerce says it hopes to exceed that number in 2008.
Venezuela, with its love of baseball and shopping malls, is one of the most Americanized corners of Latin America, but relations have deteriorated since a brief 2002 coup against Chavez that Washington initially welcomed.
In recent weeks, Chavez has accused the United States of fomenting separatist movements from Tibet to Bolivia.
Some U.S. lawmakers are lobbying to have Venezuela placed on a list of countries that support terrorism because of good relations with Iran and accused links to Colombian guerrillas.
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