The United States’ recent response to flooding in Venezuela represented more than offering a helping hand.
The United States was cementing an already strong relationship that exists in terms of economics and shared values.
The U.S. State Department characterizes relationships between the two countries as close — the United States and Venezuela share a “strong mutual commitment to democracy.”
The State Department said President Clinton’s visit to Venezuela in October 1997 underscored the importance of the bilateral relationship.
Clinton traveled to Venezuela to launch a “Partnership for the 21st Century,” promoting common solutions for energy development, trade and investment, and protection of the environment, as well as a strategic alliance against crime and drug trafficking.
While Venezuela is a minor source country for opium poppy and coca, it is a major transit country for cocaine and heroin, with money laundering and judicial corruption listed as major concerns for the country.
Earmarking funds
The United States is working with Venezuela to combat drug trafficking by earmarking $700,000 for counternarcotics assistance in Fiscal Year 2000. Approximately $400,000 has also been set aside for Venezuelan participants in the International Military Education and Training program.
Approximately 23,000 Americans living in Venezuela have registered with the U.S. Embassy, an estimated three-quarters of them live in the capital city of Caracas. Some 12,000 U.S. tourists visit Venezuela annually.
About 500 American companies are represented in the country.
In regard to trade relations between the two countries, the United States is Venezuela’s most important trading partner and represents approximately half of both imports and exports.
Venezuela is America’s third-largest exporter in Latin America, purchasing machinery, transportation equipment, agricultural commodities and automobile parts from the United States.
Diligent response
Like Alabama Baptists, the United States government was diligent in responding to the flooding the week before Christmas that left more than 40,000 people dead and 400,000 homeless. To date, the United States government has committed approximately $25.5 million to relief efforts.
Former President Luis Herrea Campins said “effective action by Venezuela in the area of international affairs must take key facts into account” — economics, politics and geopolitics.
Elaborating on the last factor, Campins said “we are at one and the same time a Caribbean, Andean, Atlantic and Amazoian country.”
Campins said Venezuelan presidents have stated the basic principles that guide their foreign policy, following the emergence of a democratic system in 1958.
“These principles included respect for human rights, the right of all peoples to self-determination, nonintervention in the internal affairs of other nations, the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations, the rights of all peoples to peace and security (and) support for the elimination of colonialism,” Campins said.
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