The war of words between Venezuela and the United States reached new heights last month, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called U.S. President George Bush “the devil” and a “world dictator” in an address to the United Nations General Assembly. But, despite escalating diplomatic tensions, the United States remains Venezuela’s Number-One oil customer, a commercial relationship that appears likely to endure.
[...]“During the Arab oil embargo in the ’70s, we [the United States] imported 30 percent of our oil. Today, we import over 60 percent. And that dependence is growing,” commented Anne Korin, who co-directs the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington. “And it causes us to be dependent on regimes that we do not like, that do not like us, whose values are very different from our own. And it causes us to be forced to make compromises, in terms of how we would like to deal with certain countries.”