US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday defended new moves to engage anti-US leaders in Latin America as a way to check what she called “disturbing” Iranian and Chinese inroads in the region.
Clinton said US President Barack Obama has had to take a new tack after efforts by former US president George W. Bush to isolate such leaders had only made them “more negative” toward Washington and more receptive to rival powers.
“I don’t think in today’s world ... that it is in our interest to turn our back on countries in our own hemisphere,” Clinton told diplomats and other State Department staff.
She described the new world as “a multipolar world where we are competing for attention and relationships with at least the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians,” adding that such countries could soon fill the void.
“If you look at the gains, particularly in Latin America, that Iran is making, that China is making, it’s quite disturbing,” the chief US diplomat said.
“They’re building very strong economic and political connections with a lot of these leaders. I don’t think that it’s in our interests,” Clinton said.
She did not explicitly refer to inroads by Russia, which said last month it could seek the short-term use of bases in Cuba and Venezuela.
Her answer was prompted by concerns aired by a retired US State Department official about the Obama administration’s overtures toward Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an elected leftist-populist anti-US firebrand.
Clinton said Washington — which has also made overtures to communist Cuba — was still exploring how to deal with Chavez, Nicaraguan President Daniel Noriega, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa and Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Last month, the US welcomed Venezuela’s move to restore full diplomatic ties between the two countries — broken in September — by returning its ambassador to Washington.
Obama and Chavez met at the opening of a 34-nation summit of the Americas and photos of the encounter showed the US leader smiling as he shook the Venezuelan’s hand and patted him on the shoulder.
It was Obama’s first encounter with the Venezuelan leader, which critics back home assailed as naive and “irresponsible.”
Obama hit back, saying: “It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interest of the United States.”
But he said he still had concerns about Venezuela and Chavez’s often heated rhetoric.
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