Chavez taunts Bush, but Venezuela-US trade grows

As Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez stepped up his attacks on what he called the "genocidal" US administration, new figures showed that bilateral trade has surged, thanks largely to high oil prices.

To cheers from thousands of anti-globalization activists Friday, Chavez called US President George W. Bush "the world's biggest terrorist" and his administration "the most perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire" in history.

In his address to participants in the six-day World Social Forum in Caracas, Chavez repeatedly called Bush "Mr. Danger", a reference to a blue-eyed American in a 1929 novel who robs land from unwary Venezuelan peasants.

"Mr. Danger talks of human rights, but there are people in Guantanamo who are tortured, and people who disappear in the CIA jails in Europe and elsewhere in the world," Chavez told a crowd of about 10,000, which included a large Cuban delegation and many of his supporters.

Chavez said he would head within hours to Havana, and hailed Cuba's communist President Fidel Castro, his friend and ally.

"Chavez and Fidel are crazies, the crazy left -- they can call us what they want, we will inflict the greatest defeat in a thousand years of right-wingers in this continent," Chavez said.

The firebrand former paratrooper, clad in his trademark red shirt, turned to US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and said: "I love you, too," after she blew him a kiss to thank him for praising her campaign against the US war in Iraq, in which her son, a US soldier, was killed.

In a reference to new charges by Venezuela that its own navy officers passed secrets to the United States, Chavez warned he would arrest any US official trying to get hold of such information.

US Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield on Thursday said he had not received any official communication from the Chavez government on the alleged espionage.

Chavez has accused Washington of backing a 2002 coup in which he was ousted for 47 hours, and claims the United States is still scheming against him.

Washington, in turn, accuses Chavez of destabilizing the region, and recently prevented Spain from selling to Venezuela military planes containing US parts.

Still, trade between the United States and Venezuela has grown steadily for the past four years, and reached about 39 billion dollars in 2005, an increase of 35 percent over the previous year, according to official figures out this week.

Venezuela's exports to the United States were valued at 21 billion dollars, largely as a result of high oil prices. The United States imports 1.5 million barrels a day from Venezuela, almost half the South American country's total output.

The commercial attache at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington urged US and other companies to take advantage of what he called a favorable investment climate in the South American country.

"Those who do not invest now will be pushed out by other potential investors interested in Venezuela," said Jose Sojo Reyes, adding that trade between the two countries could rise a further 15 percent this year.

The statements contrasted with Chavez's fierce rhetoric against the Bush administration, which analysts say has boosted the Venezuelan leader's popularity in Latin America at a time when opinion polls show a rise in anti-US sentiment in the region.

At the same time, Chavez has been cautious to direct his attacks at the administration, and not the American people. In a major public relations coup, his government recently provided cheap heating oil to needy residents of the Bronx, New York, and other parts of the northeastern United States.

"A lot of the anti-Americanism is show," said Peter Schechter, a Washington-based political consultant who has worked extensively in Latin America.

"He has found that using an anti-American language that resembles that of Castro does him enormous good," said Schechter.

But Caracas needs the US market and Washington needs Venezuela's oil.

"The two countries are locked in a situation of mutual dependence at an economic level because of oil, while being locked in a massive clash, a lot of rhetoric," said Michael Shifter, of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank.

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