PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — President Barack Obama offered a spirit of cooperation to America’s hemispheric neighbors at a summit Saturday, listening to complaints about past U.S. meddling and even reaching out to Venezuela’s leftist leader.
While he worked to ease friction between the U.S. and their countries, Obama cautioned leaders at the Summit of the Americas to resist a temptation to blame all their problems on their behemoth neighbor to the north.
“I have a lot to learn, and I very much look forward to listening and figuring out how we can work together more effectively,” Obama said.
To Latin American nations reeling from a plunge in exports, Obama promised a hemispheric growth fund, an initiative to increase Caribbean security and a partnership to develop alternative energy sources and fight global warming.
Hopes of a “new era”
As the first full day of meetings began on the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday, Obama exchanged handshakes and pats on the back with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who once likened former President George W. Bush to the devil.
In front of photographers, Chavez gave Obama a copy of “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” a book by Eduardo Galeano that chronicles U.S. and European economic and political interference in the region.
When a reporter asked Obama what he thought of the book, the president replied, “I thought it was one of Chavez’s books. I was going to give him one of mine.” White House advisers said they didn’t know whether Obama would read it.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs joked about it, noting the president doesn’t speak or read Spanish: “I think it’s in Spanish, so that might be a tad on the difficult side.”
Later, during a group photo, Obama reached behind several leaders to shake Chavez’s hand for the third time. He summoned a translator, and the two smiled and spoke briefly.
Chavez said Saturday that he is restoring Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, voicing hopes for a “new era” in U.S. relations.
He told reporters that he will propose Roy Chaderton, the South American nation’s current ambassador to the Organization of American States, as the diplomat in Washington.
The White House said that Chavez was civil in his criticism of the U.S. during a summit meeting but that there was no discussion of reinstating ambassadors who were kicked out of each other’s countries last year. “Relationships depend on more than smiles and handshakes,” Obama economic adviser Larry Summers told reporters later.
Criticism persists
Bolivian President Evo Morales, a close ally of Chavez, said Obama’s pledge of a new era of mutual respect toward Latin America rings hollow.
“Obama said three things: There are neither senior or junior partners. He said relations should be of mutual respect, and he spoke of change,” Morales said. “In Bolivia . . . one doesn’t feel any change. The policy of conspiracy continues.”
Obama also extended a hand to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, whom President Ronald Reagan spent years trying to unseat. Ortega was ousted in 1990 elections that ended Nicaragua’s civil war but was returned to power by voters in 2006.
Ortega stepped up and introduced himself to Obama, U.S. officials said. But a short time later, he delivered a blistering 50-minute speech that denounced capitalism and U.S. imperialism as the root of much hemispheric mischief.
