Summit of Americas to highlight poor US-LatAm ties

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Xinhua

Summit of Americas to highlight poor US-LatAm ties
Xinhua, April 8, 2015

The United States' ongoing political scuffle with Venezuela and less than stellar ties with other Latin American countries are expected to take center stage at the upcoming summit of the Americas.

The Seventh Summit of the Organization of American States is set to be held on Friday and Saturday in Panama. Many Latin American governments have indicated that it is time for Washington to step up efforts to improve its poor ties with the region.

The worsening U.S. and Latin American relations have been highlighted by an executive order signed by U.S. President Barack Obama on March 9, which declared Venezuela an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to the U.S. national security.

The alarming decree against Venezuela has sparked concerns across Latin America and widespread sympathy for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, representing one of Washington's biggest regional diplomatic bungles.


Read more: http://www.china.org.cn/world/2015-04/08/content_35268521.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Obama to offer alternative to Venezuelan crude on Caribbean swing

Obama to offer alternative to Venezuelan crude on Caribbean swing
AFP
April 8, 2015, 1:00 pm

Washington (AFP) - Barack Obama will become the first US president to set foot on Jamaican soil in more than three decades Wednesday, as the United States bids to check Venezuelan influence in the Caribbean. Obama will arrive in Kingston for a meeting with the 15-member CARICOM Caribbean bloc, the first time a sitting US president visits the island since Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Obama will be keen to offer an alternative to cheap Venezuelan oil, which has enticed many of the region's struggling economies, but looks set to end. Obama will have to woo countries that while geographically close to the United States, sometimes feel politically distant.

. . .

If the US has not always made its presence fully felt in the Caribbean, that vacuum was filled by Petrocaribe, an initiative by Caracas' state-owned PDVSA -- Petroleos de Venezuela. The program offered Caribbean and some Central American nations the opportunity to defer payment for oil under low interest rates.

. . .

Piccone, now of the Brookings Institution, said the cuts to Petrocaribe are estimated to be anywhere between ten and thirty percent of supply. "The goal of the United states now is to try to break up Petrocaribe and offer in particular the Caribbean states that are so vulnerable and so dependent on energy imports some extra special attention."

More:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/world/a/27012764/