The neoliberal Hugo Chavez

The New York Times runs an amusing story on the growth in bilateral trade between Hugo Cavez's Venezuela and George Bush's America. Some highlights: [E]ven as the talk from Caracas and Washington grows more hostile and the countries seem to be growing ever farther apart, trade between Venezuela and the United States is surging. Venezuela?s oil exports, of course, account for the bulk of that trade, as the country remains the fourth largest oil supplier to the United States. Pulled largely by those rising oil revenues, trade climbed 36 percent in 2005, to $40.4 billion, the fastest growth in cargo value among America?s top 20 trading partners, according to WorldCity, a Miami company that closely tracks American trade. But American companies are also benefiting, as Venezuela?s thirst for American products like cars, construction machinery and computers has steadily grown, rising to $6.4 billion last year, from $4.8 billion a year earlier.... [T]he trade numbers illustrate a widening gulf between Mr. Ch?vez?s increasingly anti-American speeches, aimed at revving his political base, and the needs of Venezuela?s otherwise freewheeling economy. For instance, non-oil exports to the United States climbed 116 percent in the first three months of the year, according to the National Statistics Institute. Venezuela also maintains close ties to Wall Street banks, with Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse advising the governments of Venezuela and Argentina on their coming sale of $2 billion of bonds.... Most delicately, oil services companies like Halliburton, an emblem of the Venezuelan government?s distaste with American foreign policy, are at the forefront of the deepening interdependence. ?There?s rhetoric and there?s business,? said an official with the United States Commerce Department who closely follows trade with Venezuela, and asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of relations between the countries. ?The Venezuelans can?t produce their oil without our equipment. It?s as simple as that.? With 10 offices and 1,000 employees in Venezuela, Halliburton recently won a contract to assist Petrozuata, a venture between Venezuela?s national oil company and ConocoPhillips, in extracting oil from fields in eastern Venezuela.... In its July filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Halliburton reported that its energy services group, which helps companies drill for oil, hit double-digit sales growth in Venezuela in the first six months of 2006, offsetting a decline in Mexico.... The resilient ties with the United States are too much for some of Mr. Ch?vez?s critics on the left, including Douglas Bravo, a former Marxist guerrilla commander who was once close to Mr. Ch?vez, but who has broken with him over Venezuela?s heavy reliance on energy companies from rich industrial countries. ?If you look at its speech and discourse, this is a revolutionary government,? Mr. Bravo said in a recent interview with the newspaper El Nacional. ?But if you look at what it has accomplished, it is a neoliberal government.?