Obama Defends Reaching out to Chavez

By: Micah Bacheller

Over the weekend, the leaders of the countries of the Americas met up in Trinidad and Tobago to discuss their future relations. The hot topics of the Fifth Summit of the Americas was how would the US deal with Venezuela and Cuba. President Obama has the incredibly hard task to try and mend relations that were apparently severed when Bush was in office. He was seen giving friendly hand shakes and having good conversations with the president of Venezuela - Hugo Chavez. To the republicans in Washington, this was seen very negatively. Obama should not be smiling and joking with one of the most anti-American leader in the Americas. The Obama personnel simply said that these actions hardly endangered any prospects between them. After the 4 day travel throughout the Americas, Obama believes that he opened the road for "frank dialogue" among the many leaders of Latin America. He also made it clear that the US does indeed have many differences with Venezuela, but that, along with freedom for the Cuban people, this would be his main goal.