Santos to Meet Chavez for Negotiations to End Colombia-Venezuela Trade War

Helen Murphy and Daniel Cancel
Bloomberg
August 9, 2010

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos will meet tomorrow with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in a bid to restore diplomatic ties and end a trade war between the two nations over Chavez’s alleged support for Marxist guerrillas.

Santos was sworn in over the weekend vowing to improve relations with Colombia’s neighbors after the outgoing President Alvaro Uribe last month accused Venezuela of harboring as many 1,500 rebels inside its territory. Chavez, in retaliation to Uribe’s charges, broke off diplomatic ties and put troops along the 1,375-mile (2,212 kilometer) shared border on high alert.

“War is not part of my vocabulary,” Santos said in his Aug. 7 inaugural speech, which was attended by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, who Chavez sent to Bogota as a goodwill gesture. Tomorrow’s meeting in Colombia will be the next step in an effort to restore ties, Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said yesterday after meeting with Maduro.

Santos, 58, is seeking to revive trade with Venezuela, which was Colombia’s second-biggest export market after the U.S. until bilateral relations soured, as he aims to fulfill a campaign pledge of boosting annual economic growth to 6 percent within two years, up from an expected 4 percent forecast this year. He also wants to add 2.4 million jobs to reduce a 12.8 percent unemployment rate that is the highest in Latin America.

“Anything that complicates Santos’ plan to get trade back hurts his domestic economic agenda,” said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington.

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