MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez after better US relations with Bush's successor

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said he hopes relations with the United States will improve substantially when the “devil” and “Mr Danger” President George W. Bush leaves the Oval Office in January.

Chavez also denied OPEC-member Venezuela represented a danger to Washington. "Whoever the next president is and whatever party they are from, we aspire, we are anxious, that 2009 start with a new level of relations," Chávez said from an oilfield close to the Orinoco River. In the past, Chávez has said a victory for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election could worsen relations between the two countries. All candidates are wary of the outspoken critic of US foreign policy, although Democrat Barack Obama has said he could meet with him. "We are not a danger to the United States, for the love of God, quite the opposite," Chávez insisted. United States accuses Chávez of being soft on cocaine traffickers and of having ties to Marxist oriented guerrillas in neighboring Colombia whom Washington and the European Union classify as terrorists. Washington also considers the Venezuelan leader a negative, disturbing influence in Latin America, where he spends cash freely from an oil bonanza on aid projects and regional institutions that exclude the United States. Nevertheless Venezuela is one of the US main crude suppliers and trade between the two countries hit a record 50 billion US dollars in 2007. Besides Venezuela, in spite of President Chavez efforts, with its love of baseball, cars and shopping malls is one of the most Americanized corners of Latin America.