Deflecting fresh evidence that his regime is hosting nearly 40 Colombian guerrilla training camps, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez warned that in case of a yanqui invasion he would not send "another drop of oil to the United States."
That sent a State Department spokesman to reassure
Chávez that ``we want our mutually beneficial energy relationship with
Venezuela to continue.''
Here are a few clues about what kind of relationship
Chávez wants with us. He is waging an illegal proxy war against our ally
Colombia, helping Iran evade international sanctions and continue its push for
nuclear weapons, sending weapons to Middle Eastern radicals, fueling a costly
regional arms race and abetting drug traffickers who operate in his country
with impunity.
It is a shame that the only time our diplomats summon the
courage to say anything about Venezuela it is to express the fervent wish that
Chávez will continue to let us bankroll his rogue regime by buying his oil.
What makes the U.S. response even more underwhelming is that Chávez is working
relentlessly to find new markets for his oil so he can leave us high and dry.
So, perhaps our government should stop coddling Chávez and get busy defending
our economy and security.
Chávez's intentions are clear. Although official data on
Venezuela's oil exports are notoriously unreliable, trustworthy experts reveal
a dramatic drop in sales to the United States since Chávez took office. In
1998, we purchased about 1.74 million barrels a day of Venezuelan crude. That
number slipped to 1.42 million by 2002, and is running about 950,000 per day
this year.
The decisions by Venezuela's gasoline retailer Citgo to
cut back on retailing and refining in this country confirms Chávez's plan to
supplant the U.S. market by entering long-term strategic accords with China and
other countries.
China's footprint in Venezuela's petroleum industry has
increased dramatically since Chávez took power in 1998. Recent bids by Chinese
companies in Venezuela's Orinoco belt ``represent a significant leap forward in
the quantity of Chinese investment in the country and the quantity of oil that
the Chinese expect to extract,'' according to a report presented by Dr. R. Evan
Ellis of the U.S. Army War College at a June 3 event organized by the
University of Miami's Center for Hemispheric Policy.
A series of recent investments and loans totaling more
than $44 billion will expand China's consumption of Venezuelan oil imports from
39,000 barrels a day in 2005 to a million barrels a day by 2012.
In addition to helping Venezuela build new tankers to
carry its product to new markets, Ellis reports, China will begin construction
this November on a $6 billion refinery in Guangdong province of China -- the
first of several being discussed -- that is engineered specifically to refine
Venezuela's unique heavy oil. A high-level delegation from the China
Development Bank visited Venezuela in May 10-24 to tour facilities and oil
fields where they intend to invest and to hammer out the terms.
Of course, it will take several years for these tankers
or refineries to be completed, so, for now, Chávez is dependent on the existing
Citgo refineries that serve the U.S. market. He knows that embargoing the
United States would be an act of economic and political suicide. He already has
run the economy into the ground and is selling off the country's future to China
to raise fast cash. If he were to choke off U.S. oil revenue for political
reasons, the Venezuelan people would probably run him from office.
Nevertheless, we should take measures to protect our
economic interests.
• First, as I counseled privately when I served as
assistant secretary of state during the Bush administration, we should send a
message to Chávez that if he disrupts the flow of oil to the United States we
will respond by tapping the strategic petroleum reserve. The 700 million
barrels of oil that we keep on hand for emergencies is the equivalent of two
years of Venezuelan exports.
• We also should encourage our oil companies and energy
policymakers to work with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and others to maximize their
production and negotiate contingency plans to tap these sources in case of a
Venezuelan embargo.
These simple steps will send the message that when Chávez
threatens to cut off oil to the United States, he is playing Russian roulette
with Venezuela's future.
After 10 years of watching Chávez at work, it is clear
that he considers the United States a mortal enemy. It is time to rethink our
``mutually beneficial'' arrangement under which Chávez gets to wage war against
us, and we get to pay for it.
**Roger F. Noriega was ambassador to the Organization of
American States from 2001-2003 and assistant secretary of state from 2003-2005.
He is managing director of Vision Americas LLC, which represents U.S. and
foreign clients.