Chavez, Rising



(image via peopledaily)

Latin American big-mouth Hugo Chavez achieved a great victory in his ongoing project at gaining Hemispheric --and post-hemispheric -- influence. On the same day that The United States House of Representatives dealt Bush administration ally, Uribe's Columbia, a tremendous blow on their trade deal, Chavez nationalized the largest steel maker in Venezuela. Could the failure of the US-Columbia Trade Deal signal a further waning of United States influence in Latin America? Clearly Bush, as President, is an all but lame duck. Finally (The Corsair pours himself a chilled glass of Grappa). From The International Herald Tribune:

"For President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, socialist ideology is king.

"His decision Wednesday to nationalize Ternium Sidor, the largest steel maker in Venezuela, shows that even friends are not exempt from his efforts to control the economy: He ignored pleas from the government of Argentina, a leftist ally that is home to Techint, which controlled Ternium Sidor.

"The action by Chávez, who typically pays fair compensation, was his second against a Latin American company in a week. Over the objections of Mexico, where the big cement company Cemex is based, he had announced Monday the nationalization of that company's Venezuelan business."

Granted, the Democrats were playing politics here. It would be impossible, we cannot fail to note, in an election year (with labor union pressures), for the Democrats to allow a Columbia trade agreement to pass the House of Representatives unless they wanted to kiss off industrial-heavy states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Still, it is not inconceivable that the Republicans might have backed them up on this and let is pass and not make it an election issue in the 2008 race. But President Bush's stupid, stubborn, thick-headed stance towards politics -- the Rovian 51-49 "I'm a Uniter" stratagem -- has created an atmosphere in which throwing him under the bus is such fun sport, with zero political negatives. But -- and this is the question we should be asking rather than making such crass political calculations -- Should we have thrown Columbia under the bus on this?

And, more important: How will China take advantage of this misstep/miscalculation of the United States in Latin America?