Blue Mass Group and .08 Acres have both harrumphed the Wall St. Journal editorial blasting Rep. Delahunt for the Hugo Chavez heating oil deal. "I’m not sure how people who think it’s A-Okay to get cheap labor from China think it’s somehow a terrible crime to get cheap oil from Venezuela," sco writes, " but that’s why I’m not on the WSJ Editorial board." Indeed, the WSJ op-ed is constructed on edifice of hypocrisy: they’re not concerned with human rights so much as anti-Left foreign policy considerations. But let me put forth what I think is a reasonable liberal case against the Delahunt deal.
First, regardless of the Representative’s protestations, this deal was about politics and foreign policy. It wasn’t some Venezulean oil company offering a discount or the Venezuelan government trying to gain access to U.S. markets, both of which would be completely above board. Instead, it was the Venezuelan government using fuel as a means to enter into the political deliberations of another country. Delahunt is being just as disengenuous as the WSJ in pretending that it’s just about helping poor people in MA.
Second, to reword .08 Acres, I’m not sure how a political party whose critique of power this last decade is that campaign finance necessarily involves access and influence would believe that there’s no quid pro quo in a poorer nation giving away much needed profits to benefit a particular opposition-party state in a richer country.
Third, I dislike the current U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Regardless of the merits or problems of the Venezuelan regime, it does maintain some popular support and our foreign policy animus is driven primarily by our humbrage at the nation’s anti-capitalist policy more than anything else. This smacks of the bad old days of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.
However, it is the current foreign policy of this country. Delahunt is circumventing national foreign policy and proliferating its impact into those of dozens of states and potentially hundreds of municipalities. Federalism has its benefits, but there’s a reason foreign policy is consolidated to the federal level. Liberals may not care now, because it’s not our policy goals at stake, but eventually the tables may be turned. As galling as GOP obstruction during the Kosovo War was, can you imagine the impact had they felt fit to undermine by dealing with Milosovic as leaders of the US opposition party? It’s a bad precedent all around.
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