Chavez and Lula Go On The Road

On 6 August, the Brazilian and Venezuelan presidents set off on parallel trips around Latin America.

Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, after having gone to Mexico, flew off to Honduras and Nicaragua, before concluding his trip in Jamaica and in Panama. In search of new markets, Brazil focused this trip on signing economic agreements in the energy, construction and Brasilia’s powerful biofuel sectors.

In Mexico, the two countries’ state-owned oil companies, Pemex and Petrobras respectively, were to come to an agreement on a joint venture. In Panama, negotiations were supposed to lead to the signing of contracts allowing for the involvement of Brazilian construction firms in Panama’s planned expansion of the canal.

Coincidence or not, Hugo Chavez is also on the road in Latin America with new energy partnerships in Argentina and Uruguay. In Buenos Aires, the Venezuelan president made an offer to his Argentinian counterpart Nestor Kirchner to invest 500 million dollars in Argentine treasury bonds, in order to help ease its debt burden. In Asuncion, Chavez concluded an energy security treaty.

This trip also makes it possible for the Venezuelan president to alleviate the tense relations with some of the members of the Southern Common Market, Mercosur, which for the last few months brought into question Venezuela’s full acceptance. The last two stops, Bolivia and Ecuador, would confirm the political affinities which link Caracas with the two Andean countries.