¿Qué pasaría si gana Obama?

Por: Andrés Oppenheimer - The Miami Herals

Si las encuestas están en lo correcto y el candidato demócrata Barack Obama gana las elecciones de Estados Unidos, he aquí dos posibles escenarios de lo que podría ocurrir con su gobierno. Los invito a que decidan cuál de las dos proyecciones es la más probable.

La perspectiva optimista

La perspectiva optimista: Después de recibir un llamado de felicitación de su rival republicano John McCain en la madrugada del miércoles 5 de noviembre, Obama aparece en la televisión nacional rodeado de un equipo de superestrellas económicas y políticas. Con el billonario Warren Buffet, el ex director de la Reserva Federal Paul Volcker, los ex secretarios del Tesoro Bob Rubin y Larry Summers y el ex Secretario de Estado Colin Powell parados detrás de él, Obama pronuncia un discurso ultraconciliador.

Luciendo feliz pero sereno, Obama dice que su gobierno producirá ”un cambio real y duradero”, y anuncia que reclutará a republicanos prominentes porque “estamos enfrentando una monumental crisis económica que requerirá un supremo esfuerzo de unidad”.

Un nuevo viento de optimismo sopla de inmediato en el país, y en el mundo. La elección del primer Presidente negro de la historia de Estados Unidos es interpretada como una prueba de que el sueño americano aún sigue vivo. Los expertos estadounidenses en política predicen una luna de miel en las relaciones exteriores, señalando que a muchos paises islámicos o latinoamericanos les resultará muy difícil acusar a Obama de explotador imperialista del mundo en desarrollo.

A medida que transcurre la semana próxima, el optimismo crece cuando los periódicos informan que es probable que Obama designe al senador republicano Richard Lugar como Secretario de Estado, o a su colega –también republicano– Chuck Hagel como Secretario de Defensa.

Fuentes del equipo de transición de Obama señalan que si Obama elige a Hagel, es probable que designe al gobernador de Nuevo México y ex embajador ante la ONU, Bill Richardson, como Secretario de Estado, lo que lo convertiría en el primer hispano en ocupar ese puesto. En Latinoamérica, muchos funcionarios celebran la posibilidad de que Richardson, que habla fluidamente español y que se siente como en su casa en la región, sea el nuevo jefe de la diplomacia estadounidense.

Las señales que emite el equipo de Obama aumentan la confianza de los consumidores norteamericanos, que hacen más compras navideñas de lo esperado. El mercado de valores empieza a subir lentamente ante las expectativas de mayores beneficios corporativos. El país está esperanzado en que saldrá de la crisis económica y recuperará su deteriorada imagen en el exterior.

La perspectiva pesimista

La perspectiva pesimista: Obama gana por una diferencia aplastante el martes, y su partido demócrata obtiene una mayoría de 60 bancas a prueba de obstrucciones en el Senado, que le permitirá a los demócratas controlar a voluntad la agenda legislativa.

Aunque el discurso conciliador de Obama tranquiliza a los mercados, el mundo corporativo empieza a inquietarse cuando aparecen reportes de prensa según los cuales –a raíz de la crisis económica– la nueva administración se dispondría a aumentar los impuestos máximos más allá del 39.6 por ciento sugerido durante la campaña presidencial.

El nerviosismo de la comunidad empresarial empeora poco después, cuando ya se han escrutado todos los votos para el Congreso, y Nancy Pelosi, la demócrata que preside la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, anuncia eufórica que la aplastante victoria de Obama equivale a “un mandato para poner en práctica la totalidad de agenda demócrata”.

Los empresarios están aterrados. Temen que el ala izquierda del Partido Demócrata tome las riendas del Gobierno, aprobando leyes que aumentan más de lo esperado los impuestos corporativos, una agenda antilibre comercio, y nuevas leyes que les darían enormes poderes a los grandes sindicatos.

Por primera vez en décadas, dicen los analistas de Wall Street, no hay un verdadero sistema de pesos y contrapesos en el Gobierno de Estados Unidos. El miedo generalizado a una agenda legislativa antiempresas y a un aumento potencialmente inflacionario del gasto público hace que la bolsa de valores sufra otra caída récord. Las compañías estadounidenses anuncian despidos en masa, el consumo cae dramáticamente, y la economía pasa de una recesión a una semidepresión.

La conclusión

Mi opinión: si Obama gana, gran parte de su éxito dependerá del margen por el que gana. Si es una victoria cómoda, pero no aplastante –digamos, si los demócratas obtienen en el Senado una mayoría de 56 bancas, pero no llegan a la todopoderosa mayoría de 60 bancas– es probable que se dé la perspectiva optimista. Si es una victoria aplastante con una mayoría demócrata absoluta en el Senado, habrá más posibilidades de que se dé la perspectiva pesimista.

Tal como se vio durante los gobiernos de Reagan y Clinton, entre otros, Estados Unidos tiende a funcionar mejor cuando su Presidente tiene un Congreso opositor, y hay un equilibrio de fuerzas en Washington D.C. El gobierno de Obama no sería una excepción a la regla.

Chavez hints U.S. using telecom to spy on him

RIO DE JANIERO, Brazil (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday accused his nation's main telecommunications company of spying on him and suggested it was at the bidding of the United States.

Chavez, addressing 10 South American leaders at a summit of the Mercosur trade bloc, gave no additional details.

The accusation came less than two weeks after Chavez announced he would nationalize CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, known as CANTV.

"Well, I just announced the recovery of the state property of the Venezuelan telephone company," Chavez said. "Who controls it? North American capital. And they've used the Venezuelan telephone company to record the president of the republic. Brother, it's the empire."

Though Chavez referred to "North American capital" as being responsible for using the company to spy, he did not mention the United States by name. But Chavez frequently uses the term "empire" to refer to the U.S. government.

CANTV is Venezuela's largest publicly traded company, and its largest stockholder is New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. CANTV did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the accusation.

Chavez has had tense relations with the United States since he became president eight years ago, and frequently accuses President Bush of trying to overthrow him, allegations that are fiercely denied by American officials.

Brian Penn, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, declined to comment on the accusation about CANTV.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Venezuela Ends Oil Negotiations

By DOW JONES/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 15 — Venezuela will end negotiations with foreign oil companies over how it will take a majority control of their operations along the Orinoco River, the country’s oil minister, Rafael Ramírez, said on Monday.

Mr. Ramírez said that “there’s no possible negotiation” with the foreign companies, but he said that private companies would be allowed to own minority stakes in lucrative oil projects in the Orinoco River basin.

“Every case will be different,” Mr. Ramírez said. “We will have an effective majority control.”

The government negotiated last year with the companies about its plans to take majority control of oil operations in the country, but no agreements were reached.

In a speech to Congress last week, President Hugo Chávez said the private companies — BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Total and Statoil — would be given the option to stay on as minority partners.

Mr. Chávez also announced plans to nationalize companies within Venezuela’s telecommunications, electricity and natural gas industries.

The government has already taken majority ownership of Venezuelan oil-producing operations outside the Orinoco region through joint ventures controlled by the state oil company.

Venezuela, Iran to finance opposition to U.S.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- fiery anti-American leaders whose moves to extend their influence have alarmed Washington -- said Saturday they would help finance investment projects in other countries seeking to thwart U.S. domination.

The two countries had previously revealed plans for a joint $2 billion fund to finance investments in Venezuela and Iran, but the leaders said Saturday the money would also be used for projects in friendly countries throughout the developing world.

"It will permit us to underpin investments ... above all in those countries whose governments are making efforts to liberate themselves from the [U.S.] imperialist yoke," Chavez said.

"This fund, my brother," the Venezuelan president said, referring affectionately to Ahmadinejad, "will become a mechanism for liberation."

"Death to U.S. imperialism!" Chavez said.

Ahmadinejad, who is starting a tour of left-leaning countries in the region, called it a "very important" decision that would help promote "joint cooperation in third countries," especially in Latin America and Africa.

Iran and Venezuela are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and Chavez said Saturday that they had agreed to back a further oil production cut in the cartel to stem a recent fall in crude prices.

"We know today there is too much crude in the market," Chavez said. "We have agreed to join our forces within OPEC ... to support a production cut and save the price of oil."

OPEC reduced output by 1.2 million barrels a day in November, then announced an additional cut of 500,000 barrels a day, due to begin on February 1. Dow Jones Newswires reported Friday that OPEC is discussing holding an emergency meeting later this month to reduce output by another 500,000 barrels a day. Venezuela and Iran have been leading price hawks within OPEC.

Ahmadinejad's visit Saturday -- his second to Venezuela in less than four months -- comes as he seeks to break international isolation over his country's nuclear program and possibly line up new allies in Latin America. He is also expected to visit Nicaragua and Ecuador, which both recently elected leftist governments.

Increasingly united

Chavez and Ahmadinejad have been increasingly united by their deep-seated antagonism toward the Bush administration. Chavez has become a leading defender of Iran's nuclear ambitions, accusing the Washington of using the issue as a pretext to attack Tehran.

Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, has called Chavez "the champion of the struggle against imperialism."

U.S. officials have accused Chavez -- a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- of authoritarian tendencies, and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said recently in an annual review of global threats that Venezuela's democracy was at risk.

The U.S. also believes Iran is seeking to use its nuclear program to develop an atomic bomb. Tehran says its program is peaceful and geared toward the production of energy.

The increasingly close relationship between Chavez and Ahmadinejad has alarmed some Chavez critics, who accuse him of pursuing an alliance that does not serve Venezuela's interests and jeopardizes its ties with the United States, the country's top oil buyer. Venezuela is among the top five suppliers of crude to the U.S. market.

In a speech earlier Saturday, Chavez called for the U.S. government to accept "the new realities of Latin America," as he brushed aside restrictions that limit presidents to two consecutive terms. He vowed to stay in office beyond 2013, when his term expires, saying he would revise the constitution to get rid of presidential term limits.

But Chavez also said in his state of the nation address to government officials and legislators that he had personally expressed hope to a high-ranking U.S. official for better relations between their two countries.

Chavez said he spoke with Thomas Shannon, head of the U.S. State Department's Western Hemisphere affairs bureau, on the sidelines of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's inauguration earlier this week.

"We shook hands and I told him: 'I hope that everything improves,"' Chavez said. "I'm not anyone's enemy."

Chavez prompted a crash in Venezuelan share prices this past week when he announced he would seek special powers from the legislature to push through "revolutionary" reforms, including a string of nationalizations and unspecified changes to business laws and the commerce code.

He also announced plans for the state to take control of the country's largest telecommunications company, its electricity and natural gas sectors and four heavy crude upgrading projects now controlled by some of the world's top oil companies.

He said Saturday, however, that private companies would be allowed to own minority stakes in the lucrative Orinoco River basin oil projects.

The government has already taken majority ownership of all other oil-producing operations in the country through joint ventures controlled by the state oil company. Most companies have shown a willingness to continue investing despite the tightening terms, which have also included tax and royalty increases.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Venezuela to nationalize 'absolutely all' energy sector

Chávez tells parliament: 'We have decided to nationalize the whole Venezuelan energy and electricity sector, all of it, absolutely all.'
January 13 2007: 3:55 PM EST

CARACAS (Reuters) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday the country's entire energy sector had to be nationalized, reinforcing his socialist revolution and possibly giving himself more targets for state take-over.

But he said he would permit foreign firms to hold minority stakes in energy deals.
Video More video
Marc Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy Research discusses the situation in Venezuela. (January 10)
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The anti-U.S. leader, in power since 1999, this week announced he would nationalize power utilities and the country's biggest telecommunications firm, confirming his status as the catalyst of Latin America's swing to the left.

"We have decided to nationalize the whole Venezuelan energy and electricity sector, all of it, absolutely all," Chavez said in his annual state of the nation address to parliament, potentially opening up more projects for state acquisition in the No. 4 crude exporter to the United States.
Why gas follows oil up, but not down

The president was reinaugurated this week for a term that runs through 2013.

Chavez has already pursued oil and gas projects and power utilities but on Saturday left no leeway for a private company to hold a majority in operations anywhere in the energy sphere.
What will be targeted?

It was not immediately clear whether his pronouncement on nationalizing the whole sector was a precursor to moves against specific projects or companies.

Venezuela will have to judge how closely private firms must be connected to the country's oilfields, refineries, pipelines, gasoline stations and coal mines to count as targets for nationalization.

Huge oil service companies such as Halliburton (Charts) and Schlumberger (Charts) operate in Venezuela but Chavez gave no indication whether deals involving such businesses were now in his sights.

In his address to parliament, Chavez also said Venezuela was "almost ready" to take over the foreign-run oil projects of the Orinoco Belt, which produce about 600,000 barrels per day.

Those projects, which turn tarry, heavy crude into fuel, are run by U.S. majors including Chevron (Charts), Conoco Phillips (Charts) and ExxonMobil (Charts), as well as European heavyweights such as France's Total (Charts), Norway's Statoil (Charts) and Britain's BP (Charts).

Chavez confirmed such firms could stay on as minority stakeholders after the state had acquired 51 percent.

"If someone wants to stay on as our partner, then the door is open but if he does not want to stay as our minority partner then hand me the field and goodbye," he said.

Despite his conviction that Caracas was on the verge of taking over these projects, the country has faced a long battle in wresting control away from the foreign firms.

A senior Venezuelan oil official last month acknowledged that the Caribbean state could face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines if it takes over the projects, because of financing agreements with international banks.

Chavez Would Abolish Presidential Term Limit

'We Are Going to Deepen This Revolution,' Venezuelans Told at Swearing-In Ceremony

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 11, 2007; A21

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 10 -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, sworn in to another six-year term on Wednesday, said he would seek a constitutional amendment that could extend his tenure as he hastens his country's transformation into what he calls "21st-century socialism."

In a three-hour discourse in the National Assembly that received widespread news coverage across Latin America, Chavez promised that "we are going to radicalize this process of ours, we are going to deepen this revolution."

Invoking the mantra once issued by his mentor and ally, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Chavez said the choice for Venezuela was clear: "Fatherland, socialism or death." The ceremony was full of symbolism. Chavez wore the tricolored presidential sash on his left side, switching it from his right, a nod to his leftist leanings. And he frequently alluded to Sim?n Bol?var, the 19th-century independence hero he reveres, God and Jesus Christ, whom Chavez called "the greatest socialist of the people."

"I will not rest," Chavez said, his right hand raised. "I would give my life for the construction of Venezuelan socialism, for the construction of a new political, social and economic system."

The swearing-in came during an enthralling day for leftists in Latin America, where Chavez has been among several populist leaders to win election in recent years. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla who formed an alliance with Cuba during the 1980s, returned to the presidency in a ceremony just hours after Chavez was sworn in.

All week in Caracas, Chavez has shaken markets and angered the Bush administration by promising to nationalize utilities, seek broader constitutional powers and increase the state's control of the economy. He has also frequently referred to the new, more radical phase in what he calls his revolution -- drawing comparisons with Castro's famous declaration on Dec. 2, 1961: "I am a Marxist-Leninist and will be one until the day I die."

If the theatrics are similar, however, the apparent goal is not. Chavez stresses that Venezuela will remain a democracy, and analysts do not believe his government will embark on a wholesale expropriation of companies, as Castro's government set out to do soon after taking power in 1959.

"There have been some echoes, and it's not surprising," said Wayne Smith, who was a diplomat in Cuba and now is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington. "He's a declared admirer of Castro, and while times have changed and he can talk about moving in a certain direction, let's see what he actually does. I think conditions have changed. This is not 1959."

In Wednesday's speech, Chavez said the constitution should be changed to allow the government to take control of the natural gas industry from foreign companies, which now have wide rights in the sector. Earlier this week, he said he would increase state control over four key oil production projects. Those projects, in the Orinoco Belt of northeast Venezuela, are operated by U.S. firms such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron as well as foreign multinationals Total of France and BP.

Investors are still unclear about what his nationalization plan entails. But Ricardo Sanguino, head of the finance commission in the National Assembly, told reporters Wednesday that the government would negotiate settlements with companies it plans to nationalize.

"We're not going to do anything illegal," he said. "There will always be compensation."

Chavez said the plunge in the Caracas stock exchange this week was an exaggeration and instead lauded the country's booming economy, which expanded 10 percent last year. Shares of the CANTV telephone company, which is expected to be nationalized, rebounded after Sanguino's assurances to investors. Meanwhile, the oil markets and energy companies took a wait-and-see attitude, noted David Mares, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego who has studied the Venezuelan oil industry.

"He's announcing that he's going to do what the markets already expected him to do -- take more control of the profits of the Venezuelan production," Mares said by telephone. "He has not said that nationalization in the Orinoco means 100 percent Venezuelan ownership."

Still, the tone and substance of Chavez's recent declarations have worried many Venezuelans, opposition leaders in Caracas and rights groups. The president reiterated Wednesday that he will advance a proposal to allow him to run for reelection in 2012.

"I've proposed, and we're writing the proposal for the indefinite reelection of the president of the republic," Chavez said to applause. With all 167 members of the National Assembly in his camp, thanks to an opposition boycott of congressional elections in 2005, the measure and others proposed by Chavez are expected to pass easily.

"With the indefinite reelection and the new model he's talking about, what has been announced today is part of an era that is much harder," Ernesto Alvarenga, a founder of Chavez's movement and now an opponent, said by phone from Caracas. "I think we're definitively in a phase of Chavista hegemony," he said, using the name given to the president's followers.

After winning office in December 1998, in an election that obliterated Venezuela's two long-ruling parties, Chavez set about purging elites from office and holding referendums that led to a redrafting of the constitution and a shift in control in the National Assembly. The new constitution lengthened presidential terms and permitted reelection, and in 2000 Chavez won his first six-year term.

He has installed military officers in all levels of government and packed the Supreme Court, and now says he will end the autonomy of the Central Bank.

Chavez has also become wildly popular among the poor, who have benefited from billions of dollars in oil revenue that Chavez has spent on education, nutrition and medical programs. But critics say he plays on the most base instincts of his countrymen, benefiting from conflicts with business sectors, opposition groups and the news media. On Wednesday, he reiterated his criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, which has questioned his plan not to renew a television station license.

Chavez said that one archbishop, Roberto Luckert, is "going to hell," and he told Cardinal Jorge Urosa that the church had gone too far by meddling in state affairs. "Mr. Cardinal," Chavez said, "the state respects the church. The church should respect the state."

Chavez's Economic Plans Set Latin Markets Reeling

White House Warns Venezuela Over U.S. Companies

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 10, 2007; A07

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 9 -- Financial markets from Buenos Aires to Caracas reeled on Tuesday following Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's announcement that he plans to nationalize some private companies, and the White House warned that it expects U.S.-based corporations to be compensated for any losses.

The U.S. Energy Department also expressed concern after Chávez, who has pledged to accelerate his socialist "revolution," said Monday that he would nationalize telephone and electric utility companies and increase state control over four major oil projects in which American and other foreign companies have invested $17 billion.

At the White House, Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "if any U.S. companies are affected, we would expect them to be promptly and fairly compensated." He also said that a nationalization plan, if it proved far-reaching, could be harmful to Venezuela.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Tony Snow lambasted Chávez's plan, saying: "Nationalization has a long and inglorious history of failure around the world. We support the Venezuelan people and think this is an unhappy day for them."

The Venezuelan leader did not say whether his nationalization plan would mean outright expropriation, higher taxes or majority state control. And as is often the case after Chávez's announcements, Venezuelans scrambled Tuesday to play down the news, with energy officials saying the president was only reiterating existing policy.

But the announcement, made in a bombastic speech in which Chávez also attacked the Catholic Church and insulted the secretary general of the Organization of American States, sent stocks into a tailspin in Venezuela and generated market jitters across Latin America.

In Venezuela, the stock market suffered its biggest loss on record, plunging 19 percent, according to the Bloomberg news agency. The currency was also hit hard. The bolivar, which is officially pegged at 2,150 to the dollar, dropped to more than 4,000 to the dollar on the black market.

Trading on shares of CANTV, Venezuela's largest telephone company, was suspended for 48 hours after shares fell 30 percent. And trading on shares for the electric utility, Electricidad de Caracas, was halted after a drop of more than 20 percent. On the New York Stock Exchange, shares of AES Corp., the Arlington-based company that owns 86 percent of Electricidad de Caracas, fell 86 cents, or 4 percent, on news of the Chávez speech.

In Mexico, the stock prices of Telefonos de Mexico and America Movil SA also dropped. The two companies, both owned by the richest man in Latin America, Carlos Slim, had launched a joint effort to take control of CANTV, whose largest shareholder is now Verizon Communications Inc. Stocks in Argentina and Colombia, the latter a close trading partner of Venezuela's, dipped, as well.

"Obviously, the markets responded," said Maya Hernandez, an analyst with HSBC in New York. She said that although Chávez had said he would move to consolidate his socialist agenda, "what surprised us was the urgency with which he moved, not the direction."

Still, she said, the government has generated numerous questions that officials in Venezuela say should be answered Wednesday, when Chávez is to be sworn in to a third term.

"It's very unclear how he will go about this, especially the nationalization," Hernandez said. "What will he do? Is he going to compensate the companies? Is he going to expropriate the companies?"

Since first being elected in 1998, Chávez has moved quickly to overturn the old social and economic order, sidelining his opponents and spending billions of dollars in oil revenue to found state-run cooperatives and government companies. He has steadily taken a larger share of the pie from companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Total of France and BP, multinationals drawn to Venezuela in the 1990s. New state lending agencies have been created, and new regulations have been imposed on banks, which are now required to dedicate a percentage of loans to micro-businesses and other sectors identified by the government as important to the economy.

But Chávez has promised more. Emboldened by a landslide electoral win in December that gave him another six-year term, the former paratrooper has announced he will seek special constitutional "enabling" powers to pass laws affecting the economy, as he did in 2001 when the government first pushed through legislation to increase the state's hold.

Chávez also said the Central Bank, one of the few semi-independent entities in the country, would come under state control as its directors are replaced. The Central Bank controls cash flow and releases economic data, operations the administration wants to wrest away.

One of the bank's outgoing directors, Domingo Maza Zavala, decried the government's moves.

"The Central Bank must be autonomous," Maza said in an interview Tuesday on Globovision, a Caracas news station. "Otherwise, the people will lose confidence in the currency."

In Venezuela, businessmen were bracing for more details about the government's plan while hoping for the best. Many have long complained that private investment has plummeted under Chávez, hurting industry.

Flavio Fridegotto, a businessman speaking by phone from Venezuela, said the government has to understand that it needs foreign companies to operate freely in the country.

"We don't think that they're going to be that radical," he said. "He needs businessmen. They need to take care of the transnationals."

Staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.