Venezuela lures Honduras into trade
Honduras has joined a Central American trade pact on a sweetheart deal with Venezuela for cheap oil. Dan Grech reports why the U.S. may want to pay attention to the deal and maybe try to procure an attractive counteroffer.
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images)
More on International, South - Central America
TEXT OF STORY
Stacey Vanek-Smith: Commodities are at the heart of another global deal: a trade alliance backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. And let's just say the U.S. is not part of it. From the America's Desk at WLRN, Dan Grech has more.
Dan Grech: The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas got its start in 2004 with five left-leaning countries: Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominica, and of course, Venezuela. Yesterday, Honduras, a long time ally of the U.S., joined the trade pact as its sixth member.
Michael Shifter is with the Inter-American Dialogue:
Michael Shifter: Honduras, like other countries in Central America, are getting hit hard by rising fuel and food costs, and they're increasingly desperate. It makes sense from their point of view to turn to Venezuela.
Venezuela offers energy-starved Honduras a sweetheart deal on oil. Shifter says the risk is that other U.S. allies in Central America will follow Honduras.
Shifter: Those democracies are under a lot of strain. This is a situation that I think United States cannot afford to ignore.
Shifter says to compete, the U.S. needs to come to the table with something as tempting as cheap oil. That's no small task.
I'm Dan Grech for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Sodom, PE, 08/28/2008
Well that's a good thing because the US empire needs to go down so the rest of the world can live in peace.
Countries need to break away from the USA.
From Norfolk, VA, 08/26/2008
Good thing we've got a trade deal with Columbia to fall back on ... oh wait, no we don't. Some genius Speaker of the House put the kibosh on that.
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