As the Obama Administration settles into the White House and reviews its foreign policy agenda, one significant topic likely to emerge early will be U.S. relations with Venezuela and its radical, anti-American president Hugo Chávez. The orderly tran sition from a Republican to a Democratic Administra tion in the U.S. in January 2009 contrasts with the polarizing battle underway in Venezuela over perpet uating Chávez's stay in office. A new constitutional referendum took place on February 15. Its passage will allow Chávez to run for additional six-year terms in 2012 and beyond, giving him the time he says he needs to consolidate his Bolivarian Revolution. The referendum raises the specter of further restrictions on individual freedoms and the consolidation of authoritarian rule in Venezuela.

During the electoral campaign and in the run-up to his January 20 inauguration, President Barack Obama expressed interest in improving relations with Venezu ela. Nonetheless, President-elect Obama had also sig naled concern about Chávez's political and economic role in the region and over Chávez's support for the narco-terrorists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

These comments provoked an angry firestorm from Chávez who charged the President-elect with med dling in Venezuelan politics, and launched into a fresh diatribe against what he called the U.S.'s effort to dom inate Latin America and undermine his regime.[1] It was a blast reminiscent of Chávez's anti-American tirade when he expelled the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela last September 11.[2] Chávez's behavior also high lights the substantial challenge the U.S. and the Obama Administration face when dealing with a Latin American leader who has staked his interna tional and domestic policy on hostile relations with the U.S. and on the construction of an alliance aimed at undermining U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere.

This analysis focuses primarily on President Chávez's actions as an international actor and on Venezuela's increasingly antagonistic international role. This paper argues that coherent and prudent U.S. policy will attend first to key U.S. national and security interests in Latin America that include curbing drug trafficking, defending against poten tial threats of international terrorism, helping friends and allies, and preventing the formation of a global anti-U.S. coalition aimed at weakening American security.