Chavez, Aided by Oil Exports, Remains Larger Than Life on World Stage
The re-election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has bolstered the political support for one of the United States' most vocal and colorful critics -- furthering a complicated relationship between two foreign policy rivals economically dependent on one another.

Chavez has dubbed his international relations an effort to spread "Bolivarian" revolution urging rivals of Western powers and, in particular, the United States to band together to thwart American hegemony. His revolution has led to close ties with Cuba's Fidel Castro and a new generation of left-leaning leaders throughout Latin America. But it also has tied Venezuela to a loose confederation of rogue states ranging from Shiite-led Iran and communist China.

Chavez, the outspoken former paratrooper, still blames President Bush and the United States for a coup that attempted to topple him in 2002, and since then the Venezuelan leader has grown increasing strident in his public comments.

Since a fiery speech to the United Nations in 2006 where he labeled the American leader the "devil," Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off the United States from his nation's most vital resource -- oil. It is a complicated relationship for both nations. The United States imports more oil from Venezuela than any other nation other than Canada. For Venezuela, Chavez is dependent on the massive oil revenues generated by oil sales to America to fund his domestic and foreign programs that have helped ensure his popularity.

Chavez's programs and politics do not come cheap to a nation still home to stunning poverty and widespread hunger.

According to a study by the Economic Research Center for the Caribbean, an organization known for its criticism of Chavez's policies, the Venezuelan government has spent around $50 billion on foreign programs in the last 20 months. This includes $10 billion for anti-poverty programs, including a heating oil program to help lower income homeowners in the United States, electricity infrastructure improvements in Cuba and a hospital in Uruguay.

All this largesse has made Chavez one of the leading voices in Latin America. Following his re-election, he launched a victory lap around the continent, touring other South American nations and calling for closer relations between the regional countries.

"We are going to give a new push to bilateral relations and the South American integration process," Chavez said while in Argentina.

But underlying his speeches and policies is a critical component, his ability to cast the United States as a cruel and out-of-touch world power, bent on controlling the world. And with his electoral victory in hand, Chavez wasted no time in snubbing a U.S. offer to open discussions between the two governments.

"The president was re-elected by the decision of the Venezuelan people," U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said, congratulating the Venezuelan people on a peaceful vote. "We recognize that and we're ready, willing and eager to explore and see if we can make progress on bilateral issues."

"They want dialogue but on the condition that you accept their positions," Chavez said in his first news conference since the election.

"If the government of the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always have its door open," he added. "But I doubt the U.S. government is sincere."

According to analysts, Chavez will continue to resist any overture by the U.S. government to open a dialogue.

"[O]ne of the reasons that Chavez is so rhetorically antagonistic to the United States is that it plays very well in terms of his domestic support base at home," Richard Lapper, Latin America editor for the Financial Times, said. "[Chavez] likes to present himself at the head of a kind of anti-Bush crusade and in particular pick up on ... this growing anti-Americanism throughout the world."

But for his fiery rhetoric and penchant for drama, Chavez still has run into roadblocks in his efforts to build his tiny nation of 25 million people into a regional and international powerhouse.

The largest international stumble by Chavez came in New York, where a year-long campaign by Venezuela to garner a spot on the influential U.N. Security Council failed.

Venezuela had used its oil exports and revolutionary politics, as well as a healthy dose of anti-American rhetoric, to argue for a spot on the council. The United States expressed its opposition to Venezuela's candidacy, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warning that the Security Council would be "unworkable" with Venezuela.

"We are facing a campaign of persecution and pressure from the biggest power on the planet," Francisco Javier Arias Cardenas, Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters at the time.

When the vote came, Venezuela trailed rival U.S.-backed Guatemala for the Latin American seat on the council. Through 47 rounds of voting, neither country could garner the two-thirds majority needed to win the seat. Finally, Panama stepped forward and won overwhelming support on the 48th vote.

It was a setback for Venezuela that Chavez opponents blamed on him. Chavez had angered many by making the devil comment less than a month earlier.

"The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to President Bush, who had earlier addressed the world body. "And it smells of sulfur still today."

Despite the U.N. setback, Chavez has maintained his hard-line anti-American rhetoric, more recently rattling his largest saber, threatening to cut off the United States from his nation's oil.

"The government of the United States should know that if they go over the line, they are not going to have Venezuelan oil," Chavez said in a speech. "I have already taken measures regarding this. I'm not going to say what because they think that I can't take these measures because we would not have any place to send the oil."

Analysts say other nations have begun courting the leader seeking access to their vast petroleum reserves. The China National Petroleum Corporation has been given the rights to operate 15 fields in eastern Venezuela, a move that could give the Asian nation access to 1 billion barrels of oil.

But for now, most analysts view Chavez as more bark than bite when it comes to petroleum politics. Currently, 80 percent of the country's oil heads north to the United States (Venezuela supplies 20 percent of America's oil imports.).

"As long as oil prices remain high, Chavez is also likely to continue his personal brand of petro-diplomacy using oil revenue and the offer of cheap oil to bolster his support in the region and continuing his rants against the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush, while at the same time continuing to supply the United States with oil," Juliette Kerr wrote for Global Insight in December.

And it is that oil revenue that has filled Chavez's government coffers, enabling him to undertake domestic programs that have aided many of the poor and international efforts to fuel his Bolivarian revolution. But if oil prices drop, many of the initiatives that have ensured his popularity at home could evaporate.

Also, political developments in the United States could complicate Chavez's future efforts. The Financial Times' Lapper said President Bush's low approval ratings and the election of a Democratic Congress could spell trouble for Chavez's revolution.

"[T]he move in the U.S. towards a more pragmatic and less ideological foreign policy is bad news for Chavez in a way because he really ... loves when [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld called him Hitler and made that comparison. He loves that because it gives him an excuse just to let vent all this vitriol, and that kind of plays well domestically," Lapper said.

-- By Lee Banville, Online NewsHour