Chavez to Putin: “I Want to Be Your Friend”

Ray Walser / April 01, 2010

Almost a year ago, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez told President Obama, “I want to be your friend.”  Today the much-photographed handshake at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad has become a cold shoulder.   Sadly like much of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy, relations with arch-anti-American Hugo Chavez have fallen well short of expectations.  Good intentions, positive gestures, and, a little naïveté has not stopped Hugo Chavez from pursuing his mission to consolidate authoritarian rule in Venezuela and undermine U.S. leadership and influence in the Americas.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to Caracas on April 2 is designed to show that Russia is once again a strategic player in the Americas.   It highlights the fact that Putin and Chavez share common objectives. They are united in hostility toward the U.S. and aim to trim U.S. global influence for democracy, economic freedom, and stable security. (more…)