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From the
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ay
/J
une
2007
Of related interest . . .
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President Hugo Chávez’s tightening control of the Venezuelan
economy is having the doubtless unintended effect of promoting
the flight of many of his wealthy countrymen to the United States,
particularly Florida. According to the latest US Census, between
2000 – a year after Mr Chávez took office – and 2005, the number of
Venezuelans living in the US doubled to about 160,000. Nearly half
live in Florida. Venezuelans have had a long-time interest in Florida
investment property, but the latest buyers are seeking houses and
business properties that will help them earn the green card, the
traditional preliminary to naturalized citizenship.
And the Venezuelan influx is intensifying. According to the latest
Department of Homeland Security statistics, in 2005, 10,645
Venezuelans received green cards allowing them to live in the US,
almost double the total for 2004. By way of comparison, Colombia,
with nearly twice Venezuela’s roughly 27 million residents, sent the
same number that year. And of the thousands of Venezuelans who
came to the US in 2005 on business and tourism visas, at least
some are presumed to have stayed.
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Latin Americans are not the only ones spotting value in American
real estate. South Koreans spent $780 million on overseas real
estate in 2006, 34 times more than in the previous year and almost
half of it (48 per cent) in the United States. Canada drew 23 per cent
and China 5.9 per cent of the outlay, according to the Central Bank
of Korea.
Matters of trade
A US administration with few trade-pact
successes tries sweet talk with Congress
The Democrats who last autumn prevailed over Congressional
candidates from President George W Bush’s Republican party
had campaigned against Mr Bush’s trade policies, and trade
deals promoted by the administration seemed doomed in the new
Congress. But in early March the administration and Republican
lawmakers were making a fairly obvious effort to gain Democratic
support for three pending trade deals: with Panama, Peru, and
Colombia.
“There’s no question that there’s been a change on the Republican
side,”
Rep Charles B Rangel, the New York Democrat who is
chairman of the HouseWays andMeans Committee, said onMarch 5.
“They refused to talk about these things before, and now they’re
talking.”
The sudden White House softening is readily explained by the
eagerness of a lame-duck president for even the smallest foreign
policy success. US efforts to reach a free-trade agreement with
South America’s two biggest economic powers, Brazil and Argentina,
are stalled, and Washington’s efforts to influence economic policies
through the International Monetary Fund and its sister organisation,
the World Bank, have diminished.