Another gift from Hugo Chávez to the United States and the rest of the countries of the Americas.  How touching.  Just in time for Christmas.  Not just any kind of gift, but one with long-term strategic complications: His announcement that the Chinese have loaned Venezuela another $4 billion in loans on top of the $26 billion already outstanding.  The loans, secured by future sales of Venezuelan oil, ordinarily would be a normal transaction between sovereign nations, but, of course, it isn’t.  The Chinese also have pledged to invest another $40 billion in other energy-related projects.Chávez has a sweet deal going.  So do the Chinese.  The Chinese acquire more of the oil for their growing economy and in the process strike strategically at America’s potential energy supply.  Chávez, who wants to eliminate all oil exports to the United States, gets to stick his finger into the eye of a country he considers an enemy of the hemisphere – all the while generating revenue to fund his revolution that is driving the Venezuelan economy aground.

Chávez’ negative antics do not especially help HispanicLatinos in the United States, since most Americans dump them into a Spanish ethnic grab bag.  Americans cannot be expected to know much about Venezuela; they know not even half of what they think they do about HispanicLatinos.  But HispanicLatinos being typecast is a small worry compared to the strategic value of giving the Chinese a foothold in South America and to the prospect of a more upsetting development:  The slowing down of the integration of the economies of the Americas.  Anything holding back the countries of the hemisphere coming together at a time when globalization continues unabated as other regional economies gain strength is not a good thing.

The state of affairs might change if the cancer afflicting Chávez takes him offstage – which, frankly, is one of the hopes of American strategic thinkers.  They do not worry all that much about the oil that the United States might not have access to as long as availability stays at current levels.  New gas fields in South Texas and new oil supplies from Brazil and Canada can meet U.S. needs.  Rather, the problem is that the money Chávez is getting from the Chinese probably will not result in a more-developed Venezuelan economy.  A re-born Venezuelan economy with a strengthened middle class eventually would sweep Chávez from the scene.  But its already-hobbled finances open up the country to potential internal turmoil.  And any political base developed within Venezuela by China can be exploited in a time of transition.

Unfortunately, we are involved in a waiting game of sorts, but in any case Chávez is a threat to more than his own country.  He is jeopardizing the rest of the Americas.  Regional economic integration is not easily understood, much less achieved.

Chávez’ gift is a gaffe that will keep on giving.

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