Relationship between Venezuela and USA - Essay Example

The Relationship between the United s and Venezuela Introduction Recently, newissues started to influence relations between Venezuela and the United States. The bilateral disposition of their relationship becomes more and more subjected to the demands of international policymaking. Latin America exerted new efforts toward integration. Moreover, the U.S. started to visualize a hemispheric alliance that would revolutionize the North-South structure of the American continent (Weeks 10). In Venezuela, the presidency of Hugo Chavez seemed to define a decisive moment, even a snapping point, whose importance should be explored within the perspective of the long-standing history of the relationship between Venezuela and the United States. This essay discusses the relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela. It focuses on Venezuela’s resistance to the domination strategy of the United States. The Interest of the United States in Latin America and Venezuela The key aspect of the relationship of U.S. with Latin American countries since the postwar period has been how these North and South regions of the Western hemisphere became profoundly engaged in the existence of each other in all possible ways—culturally, militarily, politically, and economically. Interdependence became more evident during the post-Cold War years (De Escobar & Romero 39). However, the culmination of the Cold War did not produce interdependence, instead it exposed it. Latin American countries had been dependent on the U.S. for so long for popular culture, products and/or services, employment, security, technology, and investment capital. The people of the United States, in the meantime, had long desired the productive lands of Latin America, as well as its cheap labor and raw materials. However, the United States has sustained interest in Latin America for a much more important motive (De Escobar & Romero 39-42). Latin America and the U.S. had approximately the same population in 1945. However, by 2005 Latin America already surpassed the U.S. population. As the Latin American population continued growing, the region occupied an even bigger space in the imperialistic goals of the United States. Hence, in a period defined by issues of unilateral militarism, anti-Americanism, and globalization, the fusion of Latin America and the U.S. becomes more important than ever (Brewer 50). Venezuela’s democratic aspirations and its oil industry built special relations with the United States that eventually led to other developments: Venezuela’s aspiration to attain stronger independence, and bigger episodes that lessened the sense of Venezuela’s special status. Venezuela somewhat undervalued its relationship with the U.S. Similarly, the U.S. tended to disregard the fact that Venezuelan democracy would be successful (Brewer 81). In fact, forces undermining Venezuela’s national political system escalated gradually. By the 1990s, chaotic episodes in Venezuela would overturn several of these developments and pave the way for major reforms. If not for the uncovering of oil in Venezuela, maybe the United States and Venezuela would not have built the special relationship they have had from then on. The exceptional relationship built by the extraordinary interest of the U.S. in securing stable oil supplies has been both the strength and weakness of their relations all over the 20th century (De Escobar & Romero 72). Venezuela has always expected that the U.S. would acknowledge their special position as trustworthy friends and have at times felt distressed and ignored that, sometimes, the U.S. has taken them for granted. This may not have been the situation during large-scale conflicts in Europe or other parts of the world, when the oil advantage of Venezuela became more valuable, but in ordinary times, and particularly since the expansion of energy sources that arose after the oil problem in the 1970s, Venezuela has at times fell into the bottom of U.S. priorities (De Escobar & Romero 89). Oil has connected the U.S. and Venezuela in numerous ways that surpass the trading of hydrocarbons to the North. The geographic position of Venezuela always facilitated movement to and from the U.S. Oil firms in the U.S. stayed there, and it is almost certain that Texas immediately felt comfortable with the oil sites enclosing Lake of Maracaibo, where they built communities for their employees (Dominguez & de Castro 113). Although Venezuelans frequently protested against these enclaves as isolated outposts of the foreign oil magnates, they eventually became involved in the system. Most workers came from the local population, and several of them began to gain knowledge of the business (Dominguez & de Castro 113-115). The significance of these connections, which would greatly influence the relationship between Venezuela and the United States, also produced a number of problems. Not every Venezuelan took part in the strengthening of the relationship between the two nations; indeed, most Venezuelans were marginalized. The oil economy that occupied a large expanse of Venezuela in fact hired a fairly small percentage of the workforce. Those associated directly with the industry were composed of a privileged few, with pensions and home privileges and quality educational opportunities for their children (Nichols & Morse 29). The other Venezuelans, although they gained from the sufficient income that allowed the government to function without demanding taxes from the people, became doubtful of the foreign firms. They thought that their government was not entirely free of foreign demands and that possibly they were viewed as mere oil ‘colonies’ by the U.S. and other countries (Brewer 77). Majority of the Venezuelan people were not engaged in a modern economy in any way; instead, their lifestyles had not progressed much since the agricultural economy of the 19th century. Policymakers gradually took advantage of this dependence and demanded public approval of tax increases and other payments from the foreign proprietors of oil companies in Venezuela. This pressure started to grow especially in the 1940s, when the Second World War raised the comparative value of Venezuela as an oil reserve and when democratic activists created new demands after the demise of General Juan Vicente Gomez (Brewer 77-80). Furthermore, oil generated complex problems for Venezuela, which pushed recent detractors of the system to hold it responsible for these problems. From the very beginning, oil encouraged dishonest activities, as the administration of General Gomez viewed it as its personal resource, handing out favors to friends or associates, who would eventually trade their rights to foreign shareholders at a bigger return. Lots of family riches were acquired in Venezuela through this, and hence a number of rich families would afterward endure suspicion (Corrales & Romero, 65). During this time, the major investors were the Shell Oil Company and the Standard Oil Company from the U.S. (Corrales & Romero 104). Therefore, the relationship between the United States and Venezuela has been defined by the presence of shared interests and a disagreement whose origins are in the lop-sidedness of their comparative power. Hugo Chavez: The Fight against U.S. Hegemony It is without a doubt that Hugo Chavez made the field of U.S.-Venezuela relations interesting again. Since the culmination of the Cold War, the relationship between Latin America and U.S. became an unappealing subject matter for American legislators and international relations (IR) scholars (Manwaring 39). Latin America, in the 1980s, was the focus of the United States. For those concerned about security, hostilities in Central America and the dangerous shifts from pro-U.S. authoritarians to unstable democratic transitions in South America raised anxieties in the U.S., intensifying concerns about the possible strengthening of Soviet influence in the area (Manwaring 39-40). For those concerned about the economy, the economic failure of Latin America in the 1980s provoked several of the most controversial discourses in the economic field of the period and fears that the economic system developed after Bretton Woods would disintegrate alongside the failing economies of Latin America (Weeks 92). Nevertheless, with the culmination of the Cold War, these anxieties gradually disappeared. In the 1990s, security forces in the U.S. started to loosen up toward South America as countries continued in its peaceful democratic unification (Corrales & Romero 4). These emerging democracies launched economic reforms that somewhat reduced persistent economic problems and foreign policies that mostly led to stronger relationship with the U.S. As argued by Crandall (2008), security issues became less essential as globalization and democracy made government less aggressive and more responsible (as cited in Corrales & Romero 4). Even though the U.S. kept on worrying about the effect of drugs on domestic security, the main historical priority of the United States in Latin America—alliance with hostile foreign countries, economic failures, and civil instability, were gradually disappearing. By the latter part of the 1990s, Latin America appeared to be moving toward hemispherism, markets, and democracy; and the U.S. could shift its focus to other issues across the globe (Corrales & Romero 4-5). This sense of security was terminated once and for all by President Hugo Chavez, who immediately after his election in 1998 started to discuss concerns that leaders of other Latin American countries had either abandoned or had courteously declined to discuss. For example, Chavez raised the issue about the U.S. scheming coup d’etat, supporting genocide, carrying out development plans intended to raise capitalists’ personal gains, plotting attacks to seize access to oil reserves, and conceiving assassinations of political leaders (Manwaring 42). These provocative accusations were suggestive of anti-imperialism and the radical left throughout the Cold War, and Chavez brought them back to life (Manwaring 42). It is expected therefore that the advent of the 21st century will witness a revival of already forgotten issues. Chavez pushed U.S. politicians to be concerned about the threats of civil conflict—either in Venezuela or intentionally encouraged by Venezuela in neighboring countries—and the possibility of economic crisis—if, in case, Venezuela makes a decision to implement an oil ban on the U.S. Worries about the security of the hemisphere also reemerged with possibilities that Venezuela may become an uncompromising veto player at the Organization of American States (OAS) or may abandon the organization completely, weakening the already unstable Western Hemispheric society (Corrales & Romero 4). Ultimately, Washington yet again started to worry about dangerous partnerships with threatening extrahemispheric allies, as it saw Chavez taking part in secret trade agreements with Iran, becoming Russia’s biggest buyer of weapons, and obtaining satellite technology from China (Corrales & Romero 4). However, the U.S. and Venezuela have kept away from a mutually retaliatory relation. Not like a usual adversary, Venezuela has not separated completely from the U.S. It is still the most dependable oil provider in the U.S. Chavez has obtained a huge quantity of weapons, but he failed to raise an actual military warning to the U.S. In spite of unstable relations with Colombia and other neighboring countries, Chavez has been cautious in restraining such conflicts and preventing war, and although he declares plans of forming new alliances against the U.S., Chavez has not vigorously tore down the most integral existing foundations of power in the region (Schoen & Rowan, 38). Nor has the U.S. taken part in usual attempts to depose or undermine the administration. Although at a certain instance the U.S. reacted to Venezuela with some kind of panic attack, the U.S. has usually resorted to a strategy of “talk softly, sanction softly, and keep watch” (Corrales & Romero 5) that raises anxieties among the U.S. neoconservatives. The U.S. often declares plans of castigating the Venezuelan regime, but besides an arms ban, the sanctions implemented have been largely deficient. Although the argument could be raised that each regime poses a major security risk for the other, calmer parties appear to have dominated so far (Schoen & Rowan 44). Still, the U.S. and Venezuela has persistently claimed that the other is involved in a military, economic, and political fight for domination. Roger Noriega, the U.S. Assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, asked OAS to reinforce its Democratic Charter instruments to handle more successfully threats to peace, security, and democracy in Latin America (Manwaring 40). In relation to this, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a statement before the U.S. Congress in 2005, made an accusation that Chavez was undermining democracy in Venezuela and threatening the stability of Latin America. Afterward, the U.S. Department of Defense backed up those claims and further raised the issue of the Venezuelan acquisition of massive quantities of weapons. In February 2005, the CIA classified Venezuela as one of the most threatening countries in Latin America (Manwaring 40). Chavez answered these accusations by stating that, “The only destabilizing factor here [in Venezuela] is [U.S. President George W.] Bush” (Manwaring 40). He reiterated a controversial issue that the U.S. plans to assassinate him. Chavez proclaimed that the purpose of his actions was merely to secure the independence and importance of his nation and Latin America. It is within the perspective of safeguarding independence that Chavez persistently goes back to the notion of a ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, or ‘bolivarianismo’, that seeks to improve the capability of Latin America to realize the vision of Simon Bolivar for South America, to weaken U.S. control in the region, and to revolutionize the Western Hemisphere’s geopolitical map (Manwaring 40). When Chavez preaches about Bush as the devil or criticizes capitalism as the most terrible entity in the world, many laughed at him and refused to consider him a real threat to the U.S. However, this is a severe misjudgment. With Chavez controlling the Venezuelan oil reserves, the U.S. is confronting an unknown and unparalleled threat. There are many who nurture sinister plans against the U.S., but only a few has the ability and courage to do something about it, and one of them is Chavez (Schoen & Rowan 5): His de facto dictatorship gives him absolute control over Venezuela’s military, oil production, and treasury. He harbors oil reserves second only to those of Saudi Arabia; Venezuela’s annual windfall profits exceed the net worth of Bill Gates. He has a strategic military and oil alliance with a major American foe and terrorism sponsor, the Islamic Republic of Iran. He has more soldiers on active and reserve duty and more modern weaponry—mostly from Russia and China—than any other nation in Latin America. Fulfilling Castro’s dream, he has funded a Communist insurgency against the United States, effectively annexing Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, and Ecuador as surrogate states, and is developing cells in dozens of countries to create new fronts in this struggle. He is allied with the narcotics-financed guerrillas against the government of Colombia, which the United States supports in its war against drug trafficking. He has numerous associations with terrorists, money launderers, kidnappers, and drug traffickers. He has more hard assets (the CITGO oil company) and soft assets (Hollywood stars, politicians, lobbyists, and media connections) than any other foreign power. Such facts are alarming. Chavez envisions a world without a liberal global system: no economic demand for globalization and modernization, no global regulations or international law, no World Trade Organization (WTO), no Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OPEC), no International Monetary Fund (IMF), and no United Nations (UN) (Schoen & Rowan 5). And possibly more crucially, he envisions a time when the U.S. no longer dominates the world. He is obviously against global cooperation that does not promote the principles of the Venezuelan regime. By increasing oil prices, Chavez is trying to weaken or destabilize the U.S. economy—an objective he has proclaimed openly numerous times. He is certain that increased oil prices will boost inflation, aggravating the current economic recession in the U.S. The exploitation of what Chavez refers to as ‘the oil weapon’ is a deliberate tactical effort on his part that by now has led to greater oil prices, instability of the oil market, and economic disruption (Schoen & Rowan 5-6). His objective is to overdo himself at the expense of the United States. As correspondent Roger Cohen has emphasized, “Chavez wants to parlay his petrorevenue and pseudorevolution into a global anti-American role… High oil prices will tend to accentuate the long-term erosion of American dominance” (Schoen & Rowan 7). One way to visualize the political hostility of Chavez toward the U.S. is to bring into play the notion of ‘soft balancing’. Soft balancing denotes the attempts of a country, without military efforts, to thwart and weaken the foreign policy goals of other more dominant countries. This conceptual idea is different from more established types of ‘power balance’ in the sense that the contender tries not to demolish the dominant nation but to impede its activities—by raising its costs (Dominguez & de Castro 219). There is a certain disagreement among scholars over aspects that bring about soft balancing, but there is a certain agreement that the Chavez regime is manifesting indications of soft balancing in its relationship with the U.S. These indications involve keeping away from organized cooperation, like refusing to take part in the fight against drug trafficking; developing partnerships with countries that have shown intense anti-Americanism, such as Russia, Syria, Cuba, and Iran; generating impediments to consensus building in the global arena; and raising diplomatic ‘snags and ploys’, such as the combined military programs with Russia and Cuba in 2008 (Dominguez & de Castro 219). However, the notion of soft balancing simply offers an incomplete explanation for Chavez’s actions. In several domains, the foreign policy of Venezuela toward the U.S. is very soft to be classified as ‘balancing’—it is derived more from dialogues than actual actions. There is a huge difference between Chavez’s moderate actions and the ‘great pronouncements’. In other domains, the foreign policy of Chavez has become considerably ‘hard’ to fall under ‘soft-balancing’ (Dominguez & de Castro 219). This is apparent as regards to weapons acquisition, his laidback approach toward drug trafficking, and suspected covert associations with terrorism- or nuclear-sponsoring organizations and countries. Moreover, soft balancing is not consistently at the core of the foreign policy of Chavez. He generally exercises other foreign policy goals. Venezuela’s Current Relationship with the United States Relationship between Venezuela and the U.S. became the most controversial of all bilateral agreements in Latin America in the 21st century. President Hugo Chavez has gained popularity as the national leader in Latin America that most aggressively condemns the U.S. regime and its economic structure. Chavez’s enmity, obvious in several policies and speeches, appears unstoppable. This enmity reached its climax in 2008 when Chavez, in an address filled with curses, proclaimed Patrick Duddy, the U.S. envoy in Caracas, ‘persona non grata’ (Schoen & Rowan 68). Even prior to the 2009 election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, Chavez was already charging him of harboring the same unpleasant outlooks as George W. Bush. The U.S.-Venezuela conflict is largely political and thus far it has not extended to trade and economy. The U.S. is still the major trade partner of Venezuela, and Venezuela keeps to its foreign debt payments and supplies oil continuously to the U.S. Trade is very important to both countries. In 2009, 46% of the total exports of Venezuela went to the U.S., and 25% of the total imports of Venezuela originated from the U.S. (Nichols & Morse 361). Furthermore, until 2010, the U.S. is still the biggest purchaser of Venezuela’s crude, with 12% of oil imports of the U.S. originating from Venezuela. Due to the economic risk for both nations, it is the belief of numerous observers that it would be best to enhance the U.S.-Venezuela relations that have been besieged with conflict since 1999 (Nichols & Morse 361). Although ‘Chavismo’, the expression usually used to characterize the political and social programs of Chavez, was envisioned with anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist principles, it was not until an unsuccessful rebellion in 2002 that Chavez espoused openly an anti-American stance (Schultz para 7). Even though evidence reveals that the U.S. was not exactly involved in the attempt to overthrow Chavez in 2002, the indifferent response of Bush regime to the coup persuaded Chavez that the U.S. was totally behind the incident, the first basis of the conflict between the two nations. U.S.-Venezuela relations are still tensed as diplomats have not been sent between the U.S. and Venezuela since 2010 (Schultz para 7-8). Afterward, acting president Nicolas Maduro, ousted two U.S. ambassadors from Venezuela, charging them of attempts to threaten the nation. The U.S. acted immediately by proclaiming two Venezuelan ambassadors as ‘persona non grata’ and ousting them. Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department spokeswoman, declared that the Venezuelan ambassadors were ousted because “when our people are thrown out unjustly, we’re going to take reciprocal action” (Schultz para 9). Likewise, another U.S. State Department representative stated that the ‘untrue’ allegations against the U.S. ambassadors ousted from Venezuela forces the U.S. to “conclude that, unfortunately, the current Venezuelan government is not interested in an improved relationship” (Schultz para 10). In spite of the strained relationship between the U.S. and Venezuela, trade continued between the two nations, not like the U.S. sanction against Cuba, leading some to assume that the vicious disagreement between the two countries fulfills a different function. The 2012 statement from the Inter-American Dialogue on reconstructing the relationship between Latin America and the United States asserts that the longer the relationship is sluggish, “the harder it will be to reverse course and rebuild vigorous cooperation” (Schultz para 15). The popularity of the U.S. in Latin America deteriorated because the region views weak immigration policies, political stalemate, and considerable inequality in the U.S. as weakening its “capacity to propose and carry out strategies to deal with the issues that most concern” (Schultz para 15) Latin American countries. The Inter-American report emphasizes the need for the U.S. to be innovative, resilient, and responsive to diverse descriptions of democratic values to recreate regional foundations and “better align them with current realities and challenges to make them more effective” (Schultz para 15-16). The U.S. has also witnessed a dramatic escalation in poverty and widening of social inequality, and as present dialogues over the national budget propose reducing social services, the government has to take into consideration the achievement of social services all over Venezuela and Latin America which have tremendously reduced the level of national poverty, improved access to education, boosted literacy, reduced unemployment levels, and enhanced quality of life (Kozloff 96). As regards Hugo Chavez and his role in the U.S.-Venezuela relations, opinions are still diverse and inconsistent. Whether he should be commemorated as his people’s champion, who reallocated wealth and crushed inequality while publicly condemning U.S. policies which he thought contributed to this inequality, or whether he should be celebrated as a revolutionary leader who transformed Venezuela permanently (Kozloff 27), the actions and pronouncements of Chavez provoke all nations, especially the U.S., to reevaluate the strength of their own policies and administration. Conclusions The U.S.-Venezuela relations have long been fraught with political conflicts. It is fortunate that this conflict has not affected trading relations between the two countries. However, there are still questions about the future of this relationship, particularly with the emergence of political leaders like Hugo Chavez and the growing importance of securing oil supplies. Many argue for improved relations between the two countries, whereas others are suspicious of the political motives of the other country. Even though it is a fact that on a strategic point of view Venezuela has successfully achieved a strong relationship with the United States, on certain matters some issues have emerged, primarily in relation to the position of the United States as regards new concerns on the global arena. Venezuela has been disappointed with the one-sided stances taken by the American government in several regional political issues and has some opinions contrary to those of the U.S. on economic matters. The insecurity of trade limits, the setbacks and weaknesses of the foreign debt sector and the concentration of Venezuelan resources all raise major issues; the fact that the U.S. is the major importer and exporter for Venezuela creates a most difficult dilemma for cooperation when disputes do occur. Works Cited Brewer, Stewart. Borders and Bridges: A History of U.S.-Latin American Relations. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. Print. Corrales, Javier & Carlos Romero. U.S.-Venezuela Relations since the 1990s: Coping with Midlevel Security Threats. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print. De Escobar, Janet & Carlos Romero. The United States and Venezuela: Rethinking a Relationship. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print. Dominguez, Jorge & Rafael Fernandez de Castro. Contemporary U.S.- Latin American Relations: Cooperation or Conflict in the 21st Century? New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. Kozloff, Nikolas. Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the U.S. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print. Manwaring, Max. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare. Washington, DC: DIANE Publishing, 2005. Print. Manwaring, Max. “The New Master of Wizard’s Chess: The Real Hugo Chavez and Asymmetric Warfare.” Military Review 85.5 (2005): 40-51. Print. Nichols, Elizabeth & Kimberly Morse. Venezuela. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010. Print. Schoen, Douglas & Michael Rowan. The Threat Closer to Home: Hugo Chavez and the War against America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print. Schultz, Kylie. The Rocky U.S.-Venezuela Relationship: What Both Countries Could Learn. The International, 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. Weeks, Gregory. U.S. and Latin American Relations. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print. Read More