Even More Threats
Yet another threat from Venezuela to cut off oil exports to the United States. To make it work, Chávez would need China “to configure more of its refineries to process Venezuela's particular type of crude. Venezuela also would have to increase its fleet of tankers and build a pipeline to Colombia's Pacific coast.” So it would certainly cost Chávez. The benefit is spitting in the eye of Mr. Danger and establishing a closer relationship with China, at a time when the U.S. government is wary of its growing presence in Latin America. Or perhaps a largely symbolic goal of demonstrating his political and economic independence, thus enhancing Venezuela’s place in the region (and the world). Personal glory is all wrapped up in this as well.
Maybe he’s bluffing about cutting the U.S. off entirely, maybe he’s not. Normally with threats (and he is making a lot of them) there is the idea that some behavior/policy must change, or the threat will be carried out. It’s not clear to me what Chávez wants specifically, or whether he really wants anything at all.
1 comments:
A quick (and admittedly superficial) search finds a WP article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801370.html) claiming that Venezuela exports about 2/3 of its oil to the U.S.
So a reasonable hypothesis is that Chavez wants to reduce the country's dependence on the U.S. I would ask, though, what other suppliers would the U.S. go to? And if he wants to reduce dependence only for symbolic reasons, why not just do it without all the hyperbole that mostly makes things worse? On the other hand, maybe it is just his style.
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