United States–Venezuela relations

American–Venezuelan relations

United States	Venezuela

United States–Venezuela relations are the bilateral relations between the United States of America and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Both countries maintained mutual diplomatic relationships since the early-19th century traditionally been characterized by an important trade and investment relationship and cooperation in controlling the production and transit of illegal drugs. Relations were strong under conservative governments in Venezuela like that of Rafael Caldera. However, tensions increased after the socialist President Hugo Chávez assumed elected office in 1999. Tensions between the countries increased after Venezuela accused the administration of George W. Bush of supporting the Venezuelan failed coup attempt in 2002 against Chavez. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the U.S. in September 2008 in solidarity with Bolivia after a U.S. ambassador was accused of cooperating with violent anti-government groups in that country, though relations were reestablished under President Barack Obama in June 2009. In February 2014, the Venezuelan government ordered three American diplomats to leave the country on charges of promoting violence.

Relations between the two countries have plunged to their worst level in years after the United States imposed economic sanctions against the Government of Venezuela due to alleged abuses against protesters during the 2014–15 Venezuelan protests and allegations by the Venezuelan government that the United States was attempting to institute a coup.

Early history

Venezuela and United States's ties go back to 1806 when Venezuela was still under Spanish rule. At that time Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan soldier, filibuster and adventurer, unsuccessfully attempted to liberate his country with the aid of U.S. government. Miranda went to Washington for private meetings with President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, who talk with Miranda but did not involve themselves or their nation in his plans, which would have been a violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794. In New York Miranda privately began organizing a filibustering expedition with 200 volunteers. After hired a ship of 20 guns rebaptized Leander set sail to Venezuela on February 2, 1806. On April 28, a botched landing attempt in Ocumare de la Costa sixty men were imprisoned and put on trial in Puerto Cabello, where ten American expeditionaries were sentenced to death. In the aftermath the promoters of the failed expedition were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for piracy and violating the Neutrality Act of 1794. Put on trial the colonel Smith claimed his orders came from President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison, who refused to appear in court. Both Colonel Smith and Ogden stood trial and were found not guilty.

Following the events of the Revolution of April 19, 1810, the Captain General Vicente Emparan and other colonial officials designated by Joseph Bonaparte to govern the Captaincy General of Venezuela, were deposed by an expanded municipal government in Caracas that called itself: the Supreme Junta to Preserve the Rights of Ferdinand VII (La Suprema Junta Conservadora de los Derechos de Fernando VII). One of the first measures of revolutionaries after securing the support of six provinces was to send diplomatic missions to Britain, United States, New Granada, Curazao, Jamaica and Trinidad to seek the recognition of the Supreme Junta of Caracas as the legitimate councilor of Venezuela in the absence of the King. To the United States were sent Juan Vicente Bolívar Palacios, brother of the Liberator Simon Bolívar, Jose Rafael Revenga and Telesforo Orea who obtained some success in interesting the government of president James Madison to support the Supreme Junta.

The government of Cartagena de Indias granted powers to venezuelans diplomats Manuel Palacio Fajardo and Pedro Gual to request from the United States, and in addition to the French Empire, support for the freedom of the Spanish colonies of South America. In fulfillment of his mission they arrived in Washington in December, 1812 and immediately spoke with President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe about the situation of Venezuela and New Granada and the advantages that their independence would provide to the United States. Management without success, because the president and his secretary told him the impossibility in which they were to take part in the contest, due to the good relations that his country maintained with the Spanish

In June 1817, Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish adventurer styling himself the "Brigadier General of the United Provinces of New Granada and Venezuela and General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Two Floridas", came to Amelia Island Florida under Spanish rule as part of Captaincy General of Cuba. MacGregor, purportedly commissioned by Simon Bolivar, had raised funds and troops in Savannah (Georgia) for a full-scale invasion of Florida to control armaments traffic from U.S. and Cuba to royalists in South American Independence wars, but squandered much of the money on luxuries; as word of his conduct in the South American wars, many of the recruits in his invasion force deserted. Nonetheless, he overran the island with a small force, but left for Nassau in September. His followers were soon joined by Louis-Michel Aury, formerly associated with MacGregor in South American adventures, and previously one of the leaders of a group of buccaneers on Galveston Island, Texas. Aury assumed control of Amelia, created an administrative body called the "Supreme Council of the Floridas", directed his secretaries Pedro Gual Escandón and Vicente Pazos Kanki to draw up a constitution, and invited all Florida to unite in throwing off the Spanish yoke. For the few months that Aury controlled Amelia Island, the flag of the revolutionary Republic of Mexico was flown. This was the flag of his supposed clients who were still fighting the Spanish in their war for independence at that time. The U.S. government of president James Monroe, which had plans to annex the peninsula, sent a naval force which captured Amelia Island on December 23, 1817.

The Anderson–Gual Treaty

The Anderson–Gual Treaty (formally, the General Convention of Peace, Amity, Navigation, and Commerce) was an 1824 treaty between the United States and Gran Colombia integrated by modern-day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. It is the first bilateral treaty that the United States concluded with another American country under Monroe Doctrine issued in 1823 at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.

The treaty was signed in Bogotá on October 3, 1824 by U.S. diplomat Richard Clough Anderson and by chancellor Pedro Gual Escandón. The first U.S. consulate in the present-day territory of Venezuela was established in port city of Maracaibo in 1824. The treaty was ratified by both countries and entered into force in May 1825.

The commercial provisions of the treaty granted reciprocal most-favored-nation status was maintened despite the separation of the Gran Colombia in 1830. The treaty contained a clause that stated it would be in force for 12 years after ratification by both parties; the treaty therefore expired in 1836.

The Anfictional Congress of Panama

The notion of an international union in the New World was first put forward by the Venezuelan Liberator Simón Bolívar who, at the 1826 Congress of Panama (still being part of Gran Colombia), proposed creating a league of American republics, with a common military, a mutual defense pact, and a supranational parliamentary assembly. Bolívar's dream of American unity was meant to unify Hispanic American nations against external powers include the United States. This meeting was attended by representatives of Gran Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, The United Provinces of Central America, and Mexico but the grandly titled "Treaty of Union, League, and Perpetual Confederation" was ultimately ratified only by Gran Colombia. Despite their eventual departure, of the two United States delegates envoyed by president John Quincy Adams, one (Richard Clough Anderson) died en route to Panama, and the other (John Sergeant) only arrived after the Congress had concluded its discussions. Thus Great Britain, which attended with only observer status, managed to acquire many good trade deals with Latin American countries. Bolívar's dream soon floundered with civil war in Gran Colombia, the disintegration of Central America, and the emergence of national rather than New World outlooks in the newly independent American republics.

Recognition of Republic of Venezuela

After separation of the Gran Colombian federation in 1830 the United States recognized the Republic of Venezuela on February 28, 1835 by issuing an exequatur to Nicholas D.C. Moller as the Venezuelan Consul in New York. Diplomatic relations were established on June 30, 1835, when U.S. Chargé d'Affaires John G.A. Williamson of U.S. Legation accreditated in Caracas presented his credentials to the Venezuelan Government. The first commercial treaty between the United States and the Republic of Venezuela was signed on January 20, 1836. Ratifications were exchanged on May 31, 1836, and it became effective on June 20 of that year.

Venezuela US debt crisis

In 1869 the government of Venezuela had been forced to sign an agreement with the United States, in which agreed to pay one and half million dollars in compensation for alleged damage to properties U.S. citizens in the country devastated by civil war.

One of the first actions of president Guzman Blanco in 1870 was to review the agreement and proceed to order a full assessment of the damage to these American citizens is made. These assessments resulted in the total cost of the damage did not rise more than five thousand dollars. Consequently, Guzman Blanco challenged the agreement and suspends payment of the debt. In addition, it begins to close several consulates, diplomatic missions and the U.S. legation in Caracas, actions that caused U.S. completely baffled, because the attitude of Venezuela, had never been seen before. The firmness of Guzman Blanco and his energetic handling of foreign affairs, made the Department of State being forced to rethink their strategies with Venezuela, to such an extent that it Guzman Blanco cried defiantly:

'Bring your guns and start shooting them, because Venezuela does not want to be robbed more diplomatically.'

In 1871 the president Guzman Blanco, supported the so-called "Venezuelan Expedition of the Vanguard", which landed in the eastern department of Cuba on June 17 commanded by the Cuban Brigadier Rafael de Quesada. In this attempt to liberate Cuba were 200 men, mostly Venezuelans, with 600 weapons , ammunition and 40 mules. In Camagüey, they fought the successful combat of Sabanas del Ciego, in which the Spanish forces were very decimated. But it was not an obstacle that the Cuban patriot Jose Marti, implying in Venezuelan politics, was expelled by Guzman Blanco in 1881. Marti must hurriedly leave Caracas, where he planned to live his exile, without being able to say farewell to his friends and return to New York.

The debt crisis extends to his third government, at the beginning of 1886, when after virtually all consulate, embassy or legation, was closed and after that Venezuela he preferred align more with European nations, especially France and Germany, at the time of grant for its concessions and realize projects, rather than the United States. Finally the US Senate, made a new contract, according to the standards established by Venezuela, while accepting the removal of the previous agreements.

The Guayana Esequiba Crisis

President Cleveland twist the tail of the British Lion; cartoon in Puck by J.S. Pughe, 1895

The Venezuelan crisis of 1895 occurred over Venezuela's longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom about the territory of Essequibo and Guayana Esequiba, which Britain claimed as part of British Guiana and Venezuela saw as its own territory. As the dispute became a crisis, the key issue became Britain's refusal to include in the proposed international arbitration the territory east of the "Schomburgk Line", which a surveyor had drawn half a century earlier as a boundary between Venezuela and the former Dutch territory of British Guiana. Propaganda sponsored by Venezuela convinced American public opinion that the British were infringing on Venezuelan territory. The United States demanded an explanation but Britain Prime Minister Lord Salisbury refused. By December 17, 1895, President Grover Cleveland delivered an address to the United States Congress reaffirming the Monroe Doctrine and its relevance to the dispute. The crisis ultimately saw the Britain prime minister accept the United States' intervention to force arbitration of the entire disputed territory, and tacitly accept the United States' right to intervene under the Monroe Doctrine. A tribunal convened in Paris in 1898 to decide the matter, and in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana. The Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute asserted for the first time a more outward-looking American foreign policy, particularly in the Americas, marking the United States as a world power. This was the earliest example of modern interventionism under the Monroe Doctrine in which the USA exercised its claimed prerogatives in the Americas.

The Roosevelt Corollary and Dollar Diplomacy

The Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03 saw a naval blockade of several months imposed against Venezuela by Britain, Germany and Italy over President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in a recent failed Venezuelan civil war to overthrown him financed partially by U.S. companies as the New York & Bermudez Company and Orinoco Steamship Company. Castro assumed that the Monroe Doctrine would see the U.S. prevent European military intervention, but at the time the president Theodore Roosevelt saw the Doctrine as concerning European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. Roosevelt also was concerned with the threat of penetration into the region by Germany. With Castro failing to back down under U.S. pressure and increasingly negative British and American press reactions to the affair, the blockading nations agreed to a compromise, but maintained the blockade during negotiations over the details of refinacial the debt on Washington Protocols. This incident was a major driver of the Roosevelt Corollary and the subsequent U.S. Big Stick policy and Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America.

Cipriano Castro with US Ambassador Herbert W. Bowen who signed the Washington Protocols as representative of Venezuela government, 1903

When American diplomat, Herbert Wolcott Bowen returned to Venezuela in January 1904 he noticed Venezuela seemed more peaceful and secure. Castro would reassure him that United States-Venezuela were at a high point. However, after the Castro regime delayed fulfilling the agreements which ended the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–03, Bowen lost confidence after verifying the contributions to rebels of U.S. firms The New York & Bermudez Company and Orinoco Steamship Company at the end of failed movement to overthrow Castro, the government demanded them compensation of 50 million bolivars, but as expected the companies refused to pay, then Castro ordered his expropriation, invalidating their operating contracts in Venezuela in June 1908. The U.S. Secretary of State Elihu Root characterized Castro as a "crazy brute" or a "monkey". This would eventually lead to the Castro regime's to broke diplomatic relations with the United States, France, and the Netherlands. This would play a crucial role in the Dutch–Venezuelan crisis of 1908. Under protection of battleships US Maine, US North Caroline and US Dolphin on December 19, 1908, the vicepresident Juan Vicente Gomez seized power from Castro, while Castro was in Europe for medical treatment. As president, Gómez restaured diplomatic relations with United States and after the visit of Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, this encouraged U.S. bankers to move into Venezuela and offer substantial loans to the new regime, thus increasing U.S. financial leverage over the country. Gomez managed to deflate Venezuela's staggering debt by granting concessions to foreign oil companies after the discovery of petroleum in Lake Maracaibo in 1914. This, in turn, won him the support of the United States and Europe and economic stability. Since 1922 the growth of the domestic oil industry strengthened the economic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela; however, it was established amid highly unequal power relations between the countries, with U.S. firms maintaining the upper hand.

Good neighbor diplomacy

After The Great Depression in 1929 the Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of the first administration of Franklin Roosevelt toward the countries of Latin America. Giving up unpopular military intervention, the United States shifted to other methods to maintain its influence in its backyard: Pan-Americanism, support for strong local leaders, training of national guards, economic and cultural penetration, Export-Import Bank loans, financial supervision, and political subversion.

The U.S. ambassador Frank P. Corrigan et López Contreras at Miraflores Palace.

During the presidency of Eleazar Lopez Contreras the U.S. Legation in Venezuela was raised to the rank of Embassy in 1939. Frank P. Corrigan became the first U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela. The negotiating of the reciprocal trade agreement between Venezuela and United States concluded with the signing of the treaty in November 1939. The Lopez Contreras regime was convinced of the few benefits it would receive from the oil concessions and that the terms of the treaty were unfavorable; but fearing isolation from the process of global conclusion of trade agreements between other Latin American countries and afraid to conciliate possible discrimination by United States, the main commercial supplier and customer, and also conscious of European deteriorating political and pre war situation, decided to suggest the advisability of establishing a modus vivendi with a duration of one year was identical to the proposed Treaty.

In 1941, Isaías Medina Angarita, a former army general from the Venezuelan Andes, was indirectly elected president. One of his most important reforms during his tenure was the enactment of the new Hydrocarbons Law of 1943. This new law was the first major political step taken toward gaining more government control over Venezuelan oil industry managed by U.S. and British companies. Under the new law, the government took 43% of profits. Once passed, this piece of legislation basically remained unchanged until 1976, the year of nationalization, with only two partial revisions being made in 1955 and 1967.. In 1944, the Medina visit to Washington by invitation of president Roosevelt, marked a milestone in the Venezuelan-US relations. Besides being the first time a Venezuelan president (in office) visited the United States, the journey was understood as an expression of the alliance of Venezuela with the Allies that fought the Axis in the World War II.

In 1944, the Venezuelan government granted several new concessions encouraging the discovery of even more oil fields. This was mostly attributed to an increase in oil demand caused by an ongoing World War II, and by 1945, Venezuela was producing close to 1 million barrels per day (160,000 m³/d). Being an avid supplier of petroleum to the Allies of World War II, Venezuela had increased its production by 42 percent from 1943 to 1944 alone. Even after the war, oil demand continued to rise due to the fact that there was an increase from twenty-six million to forty million cars in service in the United States from 1945 to 1950. During the administration of Medina, Venezuela establishes relations with China in 1943 and the Soviet Union in 1945. On October 18, 1945, Medina was overthrown by a combination of a military rebellion and a popular movement led by Democratic Action. The coup led to a three-year period of government known as El Trienio Adeco, which saw the first democratic elections in Venezuelan history under interim President Rómulo Betancourt, beginning with the Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election, 1946. In the 1947 general election the writer Romulo Gallegos ran for the presidency of the republic as the Acción Democrática candidate and won in what is generally believed to be the country's first honest election because its universal, direct and secret character. He took office in February 15, and was noted for raising the state's tax revenue for oil profits increase from 43% to 50%, a tax scheme known as "fifty / fifty" and which was subsequently replicated in several producing countries as Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, army officers Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Luis Felipe Llovera Páez, opposed to the accelerating changes, threw him out of office in November 28, 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état, voided the Constitution and outlawed the governing party. Gallegos took refuge first in Cuba and then in Mexico.

The Cold War

In 1948 Delgado Chalbaud was named titular of the Military Junta of Government along with Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Luis Llovera Páez. In light of the developing Cold War and following the statement of the Truman Doctrine, the US wished to make post war anti-communist commitments permanent. The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance was the first of many so-called 'mutual security agreements', and the formalization of the Act of Chapultepec. The treaty was adopted by the original signatories, including Venezuela, on September 2, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro . It came into force on December 3, 1948 and was registered with the United Nations on December 20, 1948.

Delgado Chalbaud was twice a betrayer, but Venezuelan historians tend to speak well of him. That is often said is that Delgado Chalbaud was planning to restore Venezuelan democracy. If that was his intention, he did not get the chance to accomplish it. He was kidnapped and assassinated on 13 November 1950, by a group led by Rafael Simon Urbina and his nephew Domingo Urbina. The kidnapping took place in Caracas in the now urbanized "La Cinta" street, in Baruta.

Some believe Urbina despised Delgado Chalbaud although others allege they were close until a falling out over politics split them apart. The day after the capture and imprisonment of Urbina, he was assassinated by orders of the Direction of National Security, effectively securing to general Marcos Pérez Jiménez's position as the strongman in Venezuela for the next several years. He called a parliamentary election in November 1952 but when the results appeared to be going against him, he simply halted the counting and declared himself president. Pérez Jiménez was feared and hated in Venezuela and mocked elsewhere as the prototype of the Latin American military despot. His virulent anti-Communism and his tolerant attitude toward foreign oil companies, however, gained him the backing of the United States.

In the XI Panamerican Conference (1954) organized in Caracas by government of Pérez Jiménez, the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles lobbied on behalf of the American United Fruit Company to instigate a military coup in Guatemala under the pretext that Jacobo Árbenz's government and the Guatemalan Revolution were veering toward communism. Dulles had previously represented the United Fruit Company as a lawyer, and remained on its payroll, while his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, was on the company's board of directors.

The general Perez Jimenez receive the "Legion of Merit" in Caracas (February 13, 1954) by US ambassador Fletcher Warren

During his pro U.S. government policies, Pérez Jiménez undertook many infrastructure projects, including construction of roads, bridges, buildings, large public housing complexes. The economy of Venezuela developed rapidly during his term with the support of oil industry. Like most dictators, Pérez was not tolerant of criticism and his government ruthlessly pursued and suppressed the opponents of his regime that were painted as communists and often treated brutally. In 1954 the government of Dwight Eisenhower awarded Pérez Jimenez with the U.S. Legion of Merit. By the mid-1950s, Middle Eastern countries had started contributing significant amounts of oil to the international petroleum market, and the Eisenhower administration implemented oil import quotas. The world experienced an over-supply of oil, prices plummeted and the regime was weakened by financial crisis. In this conditions Pérez Jiménez was up for reelection in 1957, but dispensed with constitution formalities. Instead, he held a plebiscite in which voters could only choose between voting "yes" or "no" to another term for the president. Predictably, Pérez Jiménez won by a large margin, though by all accounts the count was blatantly rigged. On January 23, 1958, there was a general uprising and, with rioting in the streets, Pérez Jimenez left the country, paving the way for the establishment of the Fourth Republic of Venezuela. He moved to the Miami, Florida, where he lived until 1963.

On April 27, 1958, vice president Richard Nixon embarked on a goodwill tour of South America. This tour prompted a spectacular eruption of violent protests which climaxed in Caracas, Venezuela. The people who resented Washington's backing of the ousted ruler gathered in anti-American demonstrations and later, Nixon and his wife were almost killed by a raging mob as his motorcade drove from the airport to the city. In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower assembled troops at Guantanamo Bay and a fleet of battleships in the Caribbean to intervene to save Nixon if necessary. According to Stephen Ambrose, Nixon's courageous conduct "caused even some of his bitterest enemies to give him some grudging respect".

In a street campaign called "The March of Bolivar to the Sierra Maestra", $ 220,000 were collected, as well as a lot of arms and ammunition which were delivered to Fidel Castro cuban guerilla who was fighting to overthrown the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista supported by U.S. government. The weapons came from the arsenals of the Venezuelan Army. All this was make with the knowledge and approval of interim-President Wolfgang Larrazabal, supported by his brother Carlos and other officers like Hugo Trejo.

During the second democratic government of Venezuela of president Rómulo Betancourt (1959–1964), he was responsible for the creation of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) for the purpose of rationalizing and thereby increasing oil prices in the world market. Triggered by a 1960 law instituted by Eisenhower administration that forced quotas for Venezuelan oil and favored Canada and Mexico's industries, the mines and hydrocarbons minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo reacted seeking an alliance with oil producing Arab nations to protect the continuous autonomy and profitability of Venezuela's oil (among other reasons), establishing a strong link with the Middle East region that survives to this day. His extensive notes of the Texas Railroad Commission methods for regulation of production to maximize recovery served him well both in Venezuela and later when he took them translated into Arabic to El Cairo Oil Meeting, that served as launching platform for OPEC, where Wanda Jablonski introduced him to then minister of petroleum of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Tariki, co-founder of OPEC.

Betancourt's Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, AD) party largely disenfranchised the extreme left wing, notably the Communist Party of Venezuela (Partido Comunista de Venezuela, PCV). The Cuban Revolution had influenced PCV and student groups hoping to repeat Fidel Castro's success in Venezuela. Many leftist students formed the Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR) in April 1960.

Rómulo Betancourt and U.S. President Kennedy at La Morita, Venezuela, during an official meeting in December 1961. Kennedy embraced Betancourt's strong stance against nondemocratic governments

Betancourt instituted the idealistic foreign policy that Venezuela would not recognize dictatorial government anywhere, particularly in Latin America, but including China and the Soviet Union, an interpretation that pleased the United States. The "Betancourt doctrine" proved unrealistic, for Venezuelan democratization occurred in the midst of a marked tendency in the rest of Latin America towards authoritarianism, right or left, that came to power by military force. This put him at odds with the military strongmen (include that supported by U.S. government) who came to dominate and define political perception of the region. He was also unrealistic in reviving Venezuela's claim on British Guiana up to the Essequibo river (which had been settled by international arbitration half a century earlier, following the Venezuela Crisis of 1895) and he had all maps of Venezuela show this large territory as part of the country albeit as disputed.

Aligned with U.S. president John F. Kennedy anticommunism policy Betancourt, knowed by his firm stance against Castro, in 1961 favored the Cuba's expulsion from the Organization of American States (OAS). In June 1961, the U.S. ambassador in Venezuela Teodoro Moscoso was kidnaped by leftist students and his diplomatic car fire at the Central University of Venezuela. Before it was burned were taken from the vehicle a reckless diplomatic documents left unattended. Those documents, which contain State Department "recommendations" to Venezuelan government, were read on 8 August, 1961 by Che Guevara at Economic Conference of Punta del Este, Uruguay. On November 11 the president Betancourt ordered break diplomatic relations with Cuba. Earlier, the Mexican government had agreed to host the hundred Cuban refugees who were at the Venezuelan embassy in Havana, hoping to leave their country. In November Moscoso was named coordinator of Kennedy's Alliance for Progress program and returned to Washington. In December the president Kennedy to launch this program toured for Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Colombia that were promoted as antagonistic Democratic bastions of Castro communism. In 1962 anti-american movements led to bloody military uprisings, first at Carúpano, then at Puerto Cabello. After the unsuccessful revolts, Betancourt suspended civil liberties and arrested the MIR and PCV members of the forerunner to the National Assembly of Venezuela bicameral Congress (Congreso) in 1962. This drove the leftists underground in the FALN, where they engaged in rural and urban guerrilla activities, including seized the Venezuelan cargo ship Anzoátegui, kidnapping Real Madrid soccer star Alfredo DiStefano, sabotaging oil pipelines of US companies, kidnaping of American Colonel Michael Smolen, bombing a Sears Roebuck warehouse, and bombing the United States Embassy in Caracas.

It was during the tense Cuban Missile Crisis, between the United States and Cuba, the relationship between President Kennedy and President Betancourt became closer than ever. Establishing a direct phone link between the White House and Miraflores (Presidential Palace) since the Venezuelan president had ample experience on dealing, defeating and surviving, actions of Caribbean-based pro-soviet regimes against pro-US regimes. FALN failed to rally the rural poor and to disrupt the December 1963 elections.

Venezuela asked the Kennedy administration for the extradition of general Pérez Jiménez, and, to everyone's surprise, the USA complied, betraying an unconditional ally it had once bestowed with the Legion of Merit medal. Pérez Jiménez was first held in the Miami county jail and after an intense diplomatic dispute in 1963 was extradited to Venezuela on charges of embezzling $200 million during his presidential tenure related to Financiadora Administradora Inmobiliaria, S.A., one of the largest development companies in South America, and other business connections considered by academicians to be a classic study in the precedent for enforcement of administrative corruption in Latin American countries. Upon arrival in Venezuela he was imprisoned until his trial, which did not take place for another five years. Convicted of the charges, his sentence was commuted as he had already spent more time in jail while he awaited trial. He was then exiled to Spain.

Monument to Leoni and his wife Menca, Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela

During the government presided by Raúl Leoni (1964-1969), Venezuela maintained relations less coincident with the United States. Leoni respected the general guidelines of Venezuelan policy towards the U.S., promoting democracy in the region and the oil cooperation, but opposed the U.S. military invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, more global foreign policy and mild accepting U.S. military aid based on the counterinsurgency thesis to intensify the liquidation the remnants of the castro-communist guerrilla. Leoni put the army in charge of the country with carte blanche to be as ruthless as it had to. But in fact it was the guerrilleros themselves who brought about their own liquidation. They had no rural support whatsoever. Unlike guerrillas all over the world, they did not control villages and lived from hand to mouth. They knew they were no match for the army and avoided confrontations. Castro had been hoping that Venezuela would be the second act of the Latin American revolution, and he tried to supply the Venezuelan guerrillas. In 1967 the Invasion of Machurucuto happened when 12 Cubans and Venezuelan revolutionaries attempted to help guerrillas in the Venezuelan Andes. Soon after, Leoni suspended constitutional guarantees and in a press conference denouncing Cuban aggression against the Republic of Venezuela showing the two captured Cubans, Manuel Gil Castellanos, and Pedro Cabrera Torres. Cuba was denounced by Venezuela to the OAS. Castro sent a trusted officer, Arnaldo Ochoa, to assess the Venezuelan guerrillas, and the report that he brought was negative, which effectively ended Cuba's intervention in Venezuelan affairs. By then the Venezuelan leftists had given up on violence and were seeking legalization, but Leoni did not offer it. Ochoa was later tried and executed by Castro on an unlikely charge of drug-smuggling.

Alicia Pietri de Caldera, Rafael Caldera, Nicolae Ceauşescu and Elena Ceauşescu, Caracas, 1973

Rafael Caldera's first government emphasized the end of the Betancourt doctrine and broke the isolation of Venezuela with the rest of Latin America. With the new foreign policy of "ideological pluralism" and "pluralistic solidarity" for which it was diplomatically recognized military governments and cooperation between political regimes of different nature and ideology admitted (including China and Soviet Union), and made a policy in defense of the insular territories, and the Gulf of Venezuela, but signed the Port of Spain Protocol with Guyana, which froze the claim of the Guayana Esequiba. The president's economic policies were notable for the reinforcement of the power of the entrepreneurs's association Fedecámaras, and the period of North American economic crisis, that also characterized the first term of Richard Nixon, with low oil prices, which caused the economic growth of Venezuela to stagnate. Caldera also presided over a period of pacification making a ceasefire with the left armed groups of FALN, which were then integrated into the political life, and legalising the Communist Party of Venezuela in spite of the opposition of Acción Democrática and U.S. government. On June 3, 1970 was the first President of Venezuela that addressed a Joint Meeting of U.S. Congress with a speech in English language. In 1971, Caldera after denouncing the 1952 treaty of commerce with U.S. passed a law that nationalized the natural gas industry managed partially by U.S. companies. Also in 1971 the law of reversion stated that all the assets, plants, and equipment within or outside the oil fields would revert to the nation without compensation upon the expiration of the concessions managed partially by U.S. companies.

US President Jimmy Carter and CAP in Caracas, 1978

One of the most radical aspects of President Carlos Andres Pérez's government was the notion that oil was a tool for under-developed nations like Venezuela to attain first world status and usher a fairer, more equitable international order as one of the bearers of the Movement the non-aligned Movement and the Third World in general. Dramatical events, including the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and subsequent Petroleum crisis by OPEC Arabs countries embargo, contributed to the implementation of this vision. Drastic increases in petroleum prices led to an economic bonanza just as Pérez started his term in 1974. In January 1975, the United States excluded Venezuela from system of arancelaries preferences for being a member of OPEC, at the same time a discriminatory regime was established for Venezuelan exports to that country. The measure was cataloged by President Pérez as unfriendly and was expected to be reviewed. For February 1976, the correction of the measure had not been carried out. The political frictions motivated the presence of the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Caracas, as part of a Latin American tour. The policies of Perez, including the nationalization of the iron and petroleum industries partially owned by U.S. companies, investment in large state-owned industrial projects for the production of aluminium and hydroelectric energy, infrastructure improvements and the funding of social welfare and scholarship programmes, were extremely ambitious and involved massive government spending of almost $53 billion. In the international arena, Pérez reestablished diplomatic relations with Cuba and submitted a resolution to the OAS that would have lifted economic embargo against the country imposed by United States. He opposed the Somoza and Pinochet dictatorships supported by U.S. and played a crucial role in the agreement for the transfer of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian control. In 1975, with Mexican President Luis Echeverría, he founded SELA, the Latin American Economic System to offset the influence of the OAS, which was widely viewed to be subject to U.S. domination. William Niehous (CEO of Owens Illinois de Venezuela) was kidnapped by leftist guerilla due to his relationship with the U.S. ambassador in Caracas, Harry Shlaudeman. The diplomat had been the visible head of Washington in Chile in 1973, when the coup d'état to Salvador Allende. In 1977 tensions resurfaced, especially over Venezuela's handling of former CIA agents as Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosh who blew up Cubana Flight 455 in Barbados.

In 1978, the U.S. president Jimmy Carter arrived in Venezuela on a two-day official visit. Carter made a speech in Congress and Venezuela and signed a treaty bordering the Venezuelan's maritime borders (Isla de Aves) with the territories of Puerto Rico and The Virgin Islands, called the Treaty of Delimitation of Marine and Submarine Areas between Venezuela and the United States. Members of leftist parties such as Liga Sociaista and Ruptura protested the his presence in Caracas.

Under the presidency of Luis Herrera Campins, Venezuela maintained a policy of coincidence with the Ronald Reagan administration regarding the development of a non-socialist regional policy in Central America and the Caribbean. This led to concertation within the regional distribution scheme that was designed in Washington. However, Venezuela did not support U.S. conduct during the Falklands War (1982) contrary to Monroe Doctrine. Herrera Campins sided with Argentina in its war with Great Britain adroitly exploiting anti-British and anti-American sentiment to boost his flagging popularity. His support for Argentina came while he was asserting Venezuela’s longstanding claim to more than half of neighboring Guyana, a former British colony. Venezuela also critic the U.S. invasion of Grenada (based on the Venezuelan thesis of seeking political solutions) and the U.S. harassment policy to Sandinismo in Nicaragua. He signed an agreement with Mexico in 1980 to jointly provide Central American and Caribbean countries with a steady flow of oil, a precursor of Hugo Chávez’s wide-reaching oil diplomacy Petrocaribe. In the same year gave assylum to Cubans who sought refuge in Venezuela's Havana embassy. Given the potential threat posed by the so-called Caribbean Red Triangle (Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada) the government of Ronald Reagan approves the sale of 24 F-16 aircraft and technical assistance. In November 1983 the first F-16Bs arrive to Venezuela.

Jaime Lusinchi started his presidency in 1984 promising to govern with fairness, transparency, social sensitivity and austerity in the use of public funds, while presenting himself as a moderate president. The first three years of his presidency were characterized by efforts to achieve economy stability, the paying off of the foreign debts, the reduction of public spending, the implementation of social programs benefiting the people and the promotion of industrial growth with remarkable investment of U.S. companies. These goals were not accomplished. However, agriculture and the iron mining industry were developed during his administration, the country achieved positive growth rates at the end of 1984, with a growth rate of 6% in GDP, but the official rate of unemployment inherited from the previous government of Luis Herrera Campins was 20%.

However, Lusinchi was not successful at crucial goals for the development of the country. The oil market was too unstable due to price fluctuations and thus unpredictable, the oil prices were low, and the Venezuelan economy was too oil-dependent. This led to a dismal situation due to an excessively high government fiscal budget, depleting financial reserves for the payment of debt, an important pledge made during Lusinchi's presidential campaign. In this unfavorables conditions the Lusinchi government acquired Fifty percent of US Citgo which was sold to Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in 1986 as part of his internationalization policy.

Genscher and Lusinchi in 1987

In December 1986, the government decided to devalue the official exchange of the national currency bolivar by 93%, culminating with three years of depreciation of the national currency. Starting February, 1983, also introduced was a system of multiple currency changes. In 1987, Lusinchi finally stopped the economic program carried out from the beginning of his term in office, and gave up his attempts to pay off the external debt, control the fiscal deficit and restrain public spending.

After that, Lusinchi decreed salary increases, price controls, emission of currency and compensatory bonds for subsidies. These measures tried to appease social tensions, that from 1987 on had appeared with more intensity. Among the consequences of this economic program were, more inflation and budget deficits.

The return to economic populism as in previous administrations safeguarded Lusinchi's popularity. However, there occurred currency devaluation, corruption, media criticism and unsatisfactory results from the Presidential Commission for State Reform (COPRE) which was established on 17 December 1984 and whose work encountered the same bureaucratic problems and administrative inefficiency, which it attempted to solve.

During Lusinchi's presidency some repudable incidents also occurred, such as the Yumare massacre, in Yaracuy, on 8 May 1986 carried out by the DISIP (political police of Venezuela), executing nine members of the subversive group Punto Cero; and the massacre of El Amparo, in Apure State, on 29 October 1988, in which 14 fishermen were mistakenly assumed to be guerrillas and killed by the army assisted by CIA agents.

Presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez (second Term)

President Carlos Andrés Pérez next to US President George H. W. Bush during a visit to Washington during his second term in office

In February 1989, at the beginning of his second term the president Perez, accepted an International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposal known as the Washington consensus that promoted and supported neo liberal regimes throughout Latin America, which privatized and de-nationalized thousand public enterprises in the most lucrative economic sectors. In return for accepting this proposal, the IMF offered Venezuela a loan for 4.5 billion US dollars. This cooperation came about weeks after his victory in the 1988 presidential election, and a populist, anti-neoliberal campaign during which he described the IMF as "a neutron bomb that killed people, but left buildings standing" and said that World Bank economists were "genocide workers in the pay of economic totalitarianism". Poor economic conditions led to attempts to revolutionize the political and economic structure of Venezuela, but the implementation of the neoliberal reforms (and in particular the liberalisation of gasoline prices, which caused an immediate increase in the cost to consumers and rises in fares on public transport) resulted in massive popular protests in Caracas, the capital. The protests lead to a large number of deaths —estimates range from 500 to 3000 citation needed—, and resulted in the declaration of a state of emergency. The protest is now referred to as the Caracazo. In 1990, PDVSA acquired the remainder fifty percent of US Citgo, resulting in the current ownership structure. This trade motivated the visit of U.S. President George H. W. Bush in the last leg of his tour of five Latin American countries aimed at supporting democratic regimes in the hemisphere and promote the "Iniciativa para las Americas" program, that ended with student protests in Caracas with 14 wounded and 40 arrests.

In 1992, the president Perez government survived two coup attempts that were object of strict monitoring by the Bush administration. The first attempt took place 4 February 1992, and was led by Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chávez, who was later elected president. With the attempt having clearly failed, Chávez was catapulted into the national spotlight when he was allowed to appear live on national television to call for all remaining rebel detachments in Venezuela to cease hostilities. When he did so, Chávez famously quipped on national television that he had only failed "por ahora"—"for now". The second, and much bloodier, insurrection took place on 27 November 1992, with many more deaths than the first.

In matter of products trade is remarkable the banning on shipment of reformulated Venezuelan gasoline due to Clean Air Act environmental provision and the continued threat of further restrictions despite the World Trade Organization(WTO) ruling. The embargo on the import of tuna caught and processed by Venezuelan companies because the existence of an environmental provision about dolphin protection.

Presidency of Rafael Caldera (second Term)

In his second presidency, Rafael Caldera included politicians from other political backgrounds who supported his candidacy in his cabinet, like some representatives of leftiest MAS party, Teodoro Petkoff at the Ministry of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning, and Pompeyo Márquez at the Border Ministry, as well as some independents in other ministries. In any case the support of the MAS and other parties were fundamental to approve some laws in the National Congress in his first years of government, due to his own party having few seats in Congress. In 1996, he received Pope John Paul II on his second visit to Venezuela, when he blessed the prisoners of the Catia Prison, on the west side of Caracas (After this visit, the building was demolished). On 12 October 1997 he received U.S. President Bill Clinton and in November of the same year Margarita Island hosted the Seventh Ibero-American Conference. In June 1998, the Inaugural meeting of the XXVIII General Assembly of the Organization of American States was held in Caracas.

The highlights of bilateral relations were: At the end of 1994, the U.S. openly supported the election of former President of Colombia, César Gaviria, as Secretary General of the OAS, which contributed to the defeat of the Venezuelan candidate to that position, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Burelli Rivas. At the same year U.S. the Clinton administration closed the consulate of Maracaibo created in 1824 and decided that it would impose some amendments to the imported reformulated gasoline WTO standard, thereby discriminating against the product and failing to comply with the WTO ruling. The environmental obstacles to use in the North American market the Orimulsion as a substitute of coal for thermoelectric plants. The U.S. Senate decided to lift the tuna embargo, nevertheless it ruled that the tuna will be marketed after 1999. The Department of State's repeated criticism of the current state of human rights in Venezuela and the apparent ineffectiveness of the Caldera government in combating drug trafficking. The embargo on the import of shrimps caught and processed by Venezuelan companies because the existence of an environmental provision about turtle protection. The criticism of the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on the lack of an adequate legal framework to favor the protection of human rights to promote a secure framework for intellectual property and to avoid double taxation and the American refusal to arrest and extradite those whom the Caldera Government considers fugitive bankers that are in North America territory. The only one to be arrested was Orlando Castro, former owner of the Consorcio Latinoamericana-Progreso, when a trial was opened in New York for an alleged crime in Puerto Rico. The North American perception of a situation of air and legal insecurity in Venezuela did not provide a safe field for the private airlines U.S. investments.

At the same time, the Clinton administration delayed appointing Jeffrey Davidow's successor as ambassador to Caracas, when he was appointed Deputy Secretary for Inter-American Affairs in October 1995. The new ambassador, John Maisto, former ambassador in Nicaragua, presented his credentials to President Caldera in March 1997, one year after his appointment by the White House. In November 1996, Venezuela condemned the U.S. blockade of Cuba and rejected the Helms-Burton Act in the context of the United Nations, in a clear demonstration of the use of global forums to differentiate themselves from the U.S. international policies.

Presidency of Hugo Chávez

Neo-liberal regimes reversed 50 years of economic and social policy, concentrated wealth, deregulated the economy, laid the basis for a profound crisis, which ultimately discredited neo-liberalism. This led to continent-wide popular uprisings resulting in the rise of nationalists populists as Hugo Chávez that was elected President of Venezuela by a landslide in 1998. His government after tha promulgation of a new constitution in 1999 began to reassert sovereignty over its oil reserves, which challenged the comfortable position held by U.S. economic interests for the better part of a century. The Chávez administration overturned the privatization of the state-owned oil company PDVSA, raising royalties for foreign firms and eventually doubling the country's GDP. Those oil revenues were used to fund social programs aimed at fostering human development in areas such as health, education, employment, housing, technology, culture, pensions, and access to safe drinking water.

Chávez's public friendship and significant trade relationship with Cuba and Fidel Castro undermined the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba, and long-running ties between the U.S. and Venezuelan militaries were severed on Chávez's initiative. During Venezuela's presidency of OPEC in 2000, Chávez made a ten-day tour of OPEC countries, in the process becoming the first head of state to meet Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War. The visit was controversial at home and in the U.S., although Chávez did respect the ban on international flights to and from Iraq (he drove from Iran, his previous stop). In April 2002, under Carlos Ortega's leadership, the CTV declared a national strike, to protest what he felt were the "increasingly dictatorial" policies of President Hugo Chávez. In April 11's this culminated in a protest march to the Presidential Palace, Miraflores. After violence resulted in the death of 19 people, President Chávez was briefly removed from power by Pedro Carmona Estanga in a coup d'état.

Allegations of U.S. covert actions against Chávez government

After returning to power, Chávez claimed that a plane with U.S. registration numbers had visited and been berthed at Venezuela's Orchila Island airbase, where Chávez had been held captive. On May 14, 2002, Chávez alleged that he had definitive proof of U.S. military involvement in April 11's coup. He claimed that during the coup Venezuelan radar images had indicated the presence of U.S. military naval vessels and aircraft in Venezuelan waters and airspace. The Guardian published a claim by Wayne Madsen– a writer (at the time) for left-wing publications and a former Navy analyst and critic of the George W. Bush administration– alleging U.S. Navy involvement. U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd, D-CT, requested an investigation of concerns that Washington appeared to condone the removal of Mr Chavez, which subsequently found that "U.S. officials acted appropriately and did nothing to encourage an April coup against Venezuela's president", nor did they provide any naval logistical support. According to Democracy Now!, CIA documents indicate that the Bush administration knew about a plot weeks before the April 2002 military coup. They cite a document dated April 6, 2002, which says: "dissident military factions...are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chavez, possibly as early as this month." According to William Brownfield, ambassador to Venezuela, the U.S. embassy in Venezuela warned Chávez about a coup plot in April 2002. Further, the United States Department of State and the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General found no evidence that "U.S. assistance programs in Venezuela, including those funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), were inconsistent with U.S. law or policy" or ". . . directly contributed, or was intended to contribute, to [the coup d'état]."

Chávez also claimed, during the coup's immediate aftermath, that the U.S. was still seeking his overthrow. On October 6, 2002, he stated that he had foiled a new coup plot, and on October 20, 2002, he stated that he had barely escaped an assassination attempt while returning from a trip to Europe. However, his administration failed to investigate or present conclusive evidence to that effect. During that period, the US Ambassador to Venezuela warned the Chávez administration of two potential assassination plots.

Chávez visiting the USS Yorktown, a US Navy ship docked at Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles, in 2002

Venezuela expelled US naval commander John Correa in January 2006. The Venezuelan government claimed Correa, an attaché at the US embassy, had been collecting information from low-ranking Venezuelan military officers. Chavez claimed he had infiltrated the US embassy and found evidence of Correa's spying. The US declared these claims "baseless" and responded by expelling Jeny Figueredo, the chief aid to the Venezuelan ambassador to the US. Chavez promoted Figueredo to deputy foreign minister to Europe.

Hugo Chávez repeatedly alleged that the US had a plan to invade Venezuela, a plan called Plan Balboa. In interview with Ted Koppel, Chavez stated "I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela. Furthermore, we have documentation: how many bombers to overfly Venezuela on the day of the invasion, how many trans-Atlantic carriers, how many aircraft carriers..." Neither President Chavez nor officials of his administration ever presented such evidence. The US denies the allegations, claiming that Plan Balboa is a military simulation carried out by Spain.

On February 20, 2005, Chávez reported that the U.S. had plans to have him assassinated; he stated that any such attempt would result in an immediate cessation of U.S.-bound Venezuelan petroleum shipments.

Economic relations

Citgo headquarters in the Energy Corridor area of Houston

The Venezuelan international politics during the government of president Hugo Chávez had sought to strengthen national sovereignty by promoting the formation of a multipolar world, the cooperation development with the Latin American and the Caribbean countries where the energy variable has become a cornerstone of this policy and the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean) as an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Chávez's socialist ideology and the tensions between the Venezuelan and the United States governments had little impact on economic relations between the two countries. While the volume of Venezuelan oil heading to the United States has declined since 2000 the only serious disruption came during the oil stoppage of 2002–2003, when production virtually ground to a halt as thousands of PDVSA officials went on strike to force Chavez's resignation. Chavez subsequently fired half of PDVSA's workforce, leading to a drain of talent many have blamed for some of the state company's operational. On September 15, 2005, President Bush designated Venezuela as a country that has "failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements." However, at the same time, the President waived the economic sanctions that would normally accompany such a designation, because they would have curtailed his government's assistance for democracy programs in Venezuela. In 2006, the United States remained Venezuela's most important trading partner for both oil exports and general imports – bilateral trade expanded 36% during that year

With rising oil prices and Venezuela's oil exports accounting for the bulk of trade, bilateral trade between the US and Venezuela surged, with US companies and the Venezuelan government benefiting. Nonetheless, since May 2006, the Department of State that, pursuant to Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act, has prohibited the sale of defense articles and services to Venezuela because of lack of cooperation on anti-terrorism efforts.

Opposition to U.S. foreign policy

After huge torrental rains and alluvions battered the coast of Venezuela in late 1999, Chávez initially accepted assistance from anyone who offered. The administration of U.S. president Bill Clinton sending helicopters and dozens of soldiers that arrived two days after the disaster. When defense minister Raúl Salazar complied with the offer of further aid that included 450 Marines and naval engineers aboard the USS Tortuga which was setting sail to Venezuela, Chávez told Salazar to decline the offer since "it was a matter of sovereignty". Salazar became angry and assumed that Chávez's opinion was influenced by talks with Fidel Castro, though he complied with Chávez's order. Though additional aid was necessary, Chávez thought a more revolutionary image was more important and the USS Tortuga returned to its port.

Since the start of the George W. Bush administration in 2001, Chávez was highly critical of U.S. economic and foreign policy; he has critiqued U.S. policy with regards to Iraq, Haiti, Kosovo the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and other areas. Chávez also denounced the U.S.-backed ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Chávez said that Bush promoted "a false democracy of the elite" and a "democracy of bombs".

Chávez's public friendship and significant trade relationship with Cuba and former Cuban President Fidel Castro undermined the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba. Longstanding ties between the US and Venezuelan militaries were also severed on Chávez's initiative. Chávez's stance as an OPEC price hawk has also raised the price of petroleum for American consumers, as Venezuela pushed OPEC producers towards lower production ceilings, with the resultant price settling around $25 a barrel prior to 2004. During Venezuela's holding of the OPEC presidency in 2000, Chávez made a ten-day tour of OPEC countries, in the process becoming the first head of state to meet Saddam Hussein since the Persian Gulf War. The visit was controversial at home and in the US, although Chávez did respect the ban on international flights to and from Iraq (he drove from Iran, his previous stop).

The Bush administration consistently opposed Chávez's policies, and although it did not immediately recognize the Carmona government upon its installation during the 2002 attempted coup, it had funded groups behind the coup, speedily acknowledged the new government and seemed to hope it would last. The U.S. government called Chávez a "negative force" in the region, and sought support from among Venezuela's neighbors to isolate Chávez diplomatically and economically. One notable instance occurred at the 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States, a U.S. resolution to add a mechanism to monitor the nature of American democracies was widely seen as an attempt at diplomatically isolating both Chávez and the Venezuelan government. The failure of the resolution was seen by analysts as politically significant, evidencing widespread support in Latin America for Chávez, his policies, and his views.

The U.S. also opposed and lobbied against numerous Venezuelan arms purchases made under Chávez, including a purchase of some 100,000 rifles from Russia, which Donald Rumsfeld implied would be passed on to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the purchase of aircraft from Brazil. The U.S. has also warned Israel to not carry through on a deal to upgrade Venezuela's aging fleet of F-16s, and has similarly pressured Spain. In August 2005, Chávez rescinded the rights of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents to operate in Venezuelan territory, territorial airspace, and territorial waters. While U.S. State Department officials stated that the DEA agents' presence was intended to stem cocaine traffic from Colombia, Chávez argued that there was reason to believe the DEA agents were gathering intelligence for a clandestine assassination targeting him, with the ultimate aim of ending the Bolivarian Revolution.

When a Marxist insurgency picked up speed in Colombia in the early 2000s, Chavez chose not to support the U.S. in its backing of the Colombian government. Instead, Chavez declared Venezuela to be neutral in the dispute, yet another action that irritated American officials and tensed up relations between the two nations. The border between Venezuela and Colombia was one of the most dangerous borders in Latin America at the time, because of Colombia's war spilling over to Venezuela.

Chávez dared the U.S. on March 14, 2008 to put Venezuela on a list of countries accused of supporting terrorism, calling it one more attempt by Washington, D.C. to undermine him for political reasons.

In May 2011, Venezuela was one of the few countries to condemn the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Personal disputes

Chávez's anti-U.S. rhetoric sometimes touched the personal: in response to the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, Chávez called U.S. President George W. Bush a pendejo ("jerk" or "dumbass"); in a later speech, he made similar remarks regarding Condoleezza Rice. President Barack Obama called Chávez "a force that has interrupted progress in the region". In a 2006 speech at the UN he referred to Bush as "the Devil" while speaking at the same podium the US president had used the previous day claiming that "it still smells of sulphur". He later commented that Barack Obama "shared the same stench".

During his weekly address Aló Presidente of March 18, 2006, Chávez responded to a US White House report which characterized him as a "demagogue who uses Venezuela's oil wealth to destabilize democracy in the region". During the address Chávez rhetorically called George W. Bush "a donkey." He repeated it several times adding "eres un cobarde ... eres un asesino, un genocida ... eres un borracho" (you are a coward ... you are an assassin, a mass-murderer ... you are a drunk). Chávez said Bush was "a sick man" and "an alcoholic".

Response to assassination calls

After prominent US evangelical Pat Robertson's on-air call for Chavez to be assassinated in August 2005, the Chávez administration reported that it would more closely scrutinize and curtail foreign evangelical missionary activity in Venezuela. Chávez himself denounced Robertson's call as a harbinger of a coming U.S. intervention to remove him from office. Chávez reported that Robertson, member of the secretive and elite Council for National Policy (CNP) – of which George Bush, Grover Norquist, and other prominent neoconservative Bush administration insiders were also known members or associates – was, along with other CNP members, guilty of "international terrorism". Robertson subsequently apologized for his remarks, which were criticised by Ted Haggard of the U.S.-based National Association of Evangelicals. Haggard was concerned about the effects Roberson's remarks would have on US corporate and evangelical missionaries' interests in Venezuela.

Relations with Cuba and Iran

Chávez's warm friendship with former Cuban president Fidel Castro, in addition to Venezuela's significant and expanding economic, social, and aid relationships with Cuba, undermined the U.S. policy objective seeking to isolate the island. President Chávez consolidated diplomatic relations with Iran, including defending its right to civilian nuclear power.

Organization of American States

At the 2005 meeting of the Organization of American States, a United States resolution to add a mechanism to monitor the nature of democracies was widely seen as a move to isolate Venezuela. The failure of the resolution was seen as politically significant, expressing Latin American support for Chávez.

Hurricane Katrina

After Hurricane Katrina battered the United States' Gulf coast in late 2005, the Chávez administration offered aid to the region. Chávez offered tons of food, water, and a million barrels of extra petroleum to the U.S. He has also proposed to sell, at a significant discount, as many as 66,000 barrels (10,500 m³) of fuel oil to poor communities that were hit by the hurricane, and offered mobile hospital units, medical specialists, and electrical generators. The Bush administration declined the Venezuelan offer according to activist Jesse Jackson, but United States Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield welcomed the offer of fuel assistance to the region, calling it "a generous offer" and saying "When we are talking about one-to-five million dollars, that is real money. I want to recognize that and say, 'thank you.'"

Following negotiations by leading US politicians for the US' largest fuel distributors to offer discounts to the less well-off, in November 2005, officials in Massachusetts signed an agreement with Venezuela to provide heating oil at a 40% discount to low income families through Citgo, a subsidiary of PDVSA and the only company to respond to the politicians' request. Chávez stated that such gestures comprise "a strong oil card to play on the geopolitical stage" and that "it is a card that we are going to play with toughness against the toughest country in the world, the United States."

Relations breakdown

The reactivation of the Fourth Fleet without first informing foreign governments in the region sparked concern within some South American governments. The governments of Argentina and Brazil made formal inquiries as to the fleet's mission in the region. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez accused the United States of attempting to frighten the people of South America by reactivating the fleet. and vowed that his country's new Sukhoi Su-30 jets could sink any U.S. ships invading Venezuelan waters. Cuban ex-president Fidel Castro warned that it could lead to more incidents such as the 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis. In September 2008, following retaliatory measures in support of Bolivia, Chavez expelled the U.S. ambassador Patrick Duddy, labeling him persona non grata after accusing him of aiding a conspiracy against his government – a charge Duddy consequently denied.

Despite allegedly waning of Hugo Chavez's aggressive foreign policy due to the sharp drop in oil in the last quarter of 2008, hostility with America continued. "American Corners," (AC) a partnership between the Public Affairs sections of U.S. Embassies worldwide and their host institutions, was said to be an interference in Venezuela. Eva Golinger and the Frenchman Roman Mingus, in their book, Imperial Spiderweb: Encyclopedia of Interference and Subversion, warned that it was one of Washington's secret forms of propaganda, with Golinger denouncing AC to the Venezuelan National Assembly as virtual consulates which are not formally sponsored by the US government but by an organization, association, school, library or local institution, which have not only functioned as a launch pad for a psychological war but also sought to subvert and violate diplomatic rules. The AC's were alleged to be closely supervised by the State Department. Golinger has been described by many as pro-Chavez.

In January 2009 Chavez announced an investigation into the US Chargé d'Affairs, John Caulfield, who is the leading US diplomat after Duddy's expulsion. He contended that Caulfield possibly had met with opposition Venezuelans in exile in Puerto Rico; an official spokeswoman from the United States said Caulfield was there for a wedding. Chavez used the occasion to accuse "the empire" of using Puerto Rico as a base for actions against him and Latin America. He referred to Puerto Rico as a "gringo colony" and that one day the island would be liberated.

Presidency of Barack Obama

Chávez meets with Hillary Clinton on January 1, 2011, Brasília

During the 2008 U.S. election Chávez declared that he had no preference between Barack Obama and John McCain stating "the two candidates for the US presidency attack us equally, they attack us defending the interests of the empire". After Obama had won the election, Venezuela's foreign minister labeled the outcome a historic moment in international relations, and added that the American people had chosen a "new brand" of diplomacy. Asked if the previously expelled ambassadors for each country would return, he replied "everything has its time." However at a rally the evening before November 4 elections where Chávez was supporting his own candidates Chávez echoed a sentiment by the president of Brazil Lula da Silva and Evo Morales president of Bolivia where the change happening in Latin America seemed to be taking place in the US. He expressed hope that he would meet with Obama as soon as possible. However, on March 22, 2009 Chávez called Obama "ignorant" and claimed Obama "has the same stench as Bush", after the US accused Venezuela of supporting the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Chávez was offended after Obama said that he had "been a force that has interrupted progress in the region", resulting in his decision to put Venezuela's new ambassador to the United States on hold.

During the Summit of the Americas on April 17, 2009, Chávez met with Obama for the first, and only, time where he expressed his wish to become Obama's friend.

On September 10, 2009, Chávez gave a speech at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in Moscow declaring that "in all history, there was never a government more terrorist than that of the US empire. That's the greatest terrorists in the world history," , adding that the "Yankee empire will fall. It's already falling, and will disappear from the face of the Earth, and it's going to happen this century."

On December 20, 2011, Chávez called Obama "A clown, an embarrassment, and a shame to Black People" after Obama criticized Venezuela's ties with Iran and Cuba.

Venezuela and the United States have not had ambassadors in each other's capitals since 2010. Shortly before the 2012 US presidential elections, Chávez announced that if he could vote in the election, he would vote for Obama. It is clear that the end of the Monroe Doctrine is a further step in Washington's disintegration process of a part of global affairs, primarily of non-vital issues.

Allegations of U.S. Involvement in Chávez' Death

In December 2011, Chávez, already under treatment for cancer, wondered out loud: “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” The Venezuelan president was speaking one day after Argentina’s leftist president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was after three other prominent leftist Latin America leaders had been diagnosed with cancer: Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; Paraguay's Fernando Lugo; and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. However, days after that, Chávez said that it was just a joke. While many people believe in the conspiracy, in the Oliver Stone documentary Mi amigo Hugo (made one year after Chávez' death), various presidents (included Maduro and those mentioned above) and Venezuela government people said that "even him will reject the idea of somebody causing his death". The Guardian newspaper's Venezuela expert Rory Carroll has glibly categorized serious charges that Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez Frias was assassinated by a United States-produced bio-weapon as being in the same league with "conspiracy theorists who wonder about aliens at Roswell and NASA faking the moon landings". A number of Venezuelan officials believe a hostile party covertly introduced an aggressive form of cancer into the 58-year-old president.

Presidency of Nicolás Maduro

In 2013, before Hugo Chavez died Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro expelled two U.S. military attaches from the country saying they were plotting against Venezuela, by attempting to recruit Venezuelan military personnel to destabilize Venezuela, and suggested they caused Chavez's cancer. The Obama Administration rejected the allegations, and responded by expelling two Venezuelan diplomats.

On October 1, 2013, the U.S ordered three Venezuelan diplomats out of the country in response to the Venezuelan government's decision to expel three U.S. officials from Venezuela.

On February 16, 2014 President Maduro announced he had ordered another three U.S. consular officials leave the country, accusing them of conspiring against the government and aiding opposition protests. In response to a U.S. statement that it was concerned over rising tensions and protests, and warning against Venezuela's possible arrest of the country's opposition leader, Maduro described the U.S. comments as "unacceptable" and "insolent." He said "I don't take orders from anyone in the world." On February 25, 2014, the United States responded by expelling three additional Venezuelan diplomats from the country.

On May 28, 2014, the United States House of Representatives passed the Venezuelan Human Rights and Democracy Protection Act, a bill that would apply economic sanctions against Venezuelan officials who were involved in the mistreatment of protestors during the 2014 Venezuelan protests.

In December 2014, the US Congress passed Senate 2142 (the "Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014")

On March 9, 2015, the United States president, Barack Obama signed and issued a presidential order declaring Venezuela a extraordinary and unusual threat to its national security and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials. Venezuelan president, Maduro, denounced the sanctions as an attempt to topple his socialist government. Washington said that the sanctions targeted individuals who were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights, saying that "we are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents".

On April 9, 2015, thousands of Venezuelans marched to the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas to officially hand over the 10 million signatures collected by activists demanding that the Obama administration repeal the Executive Order which brands Venezuela an “extraordinary threat” to U.S. “national security”.

The move was widely denounced by other Latin American countries. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States issued a statement criticizing Washington's "unilateral coercive measures against International Law." The Secretary-General of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Ernesto Samper said that the body rejects "any attempt at internal or external interference that attempts to disrupt the democratic process in Venezuela."

United States–Venezuela views

United States

Despite the continually strained ties between the two governments, 82% of Venezuelans viewed the U.S. positively in 2002, though this view declined down to 62% in 2014 (per the Pew Research Global Attitudes Project). The Gallup Global Leadership Report indicates that as of 2013, 35% of Venezuelans approve of United States' global leadership, and 35% disapprove.

SICOFAA

In 1960 the UNITAS naval exercises and in port training involving several countries in North, South and Central America were conducted by first time in Venezuelan territorial waters in support of the Cold war U.S. policy. Venezuela is an active member of SICOFAA.

Images

Chávez meets with Hillary Clinton on January 1, 2011, Brasília

See also

• United States and South and Central America
• Foreign policy of the United States
• United States – Venezuela Maritime Boundary Treaty
• Venezuelan American
• Bolivarian diaspora
• List of authoritarian regimes supported by the United States

Further reading

• Ewell, Judith. Venezuela and the United States: From Monroe's Hemisphere to Petroleum's Empire (University of Georgia Press, 1996)

External links

• History of Venezuela – U.S. relations
• U.S. Arms Sales to Venezuela from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives