Obama Defends Reaching Out to Chávez

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
NYT

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — President Obama, facing criticism at home for appearing too cozy with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, defended his overtures on Sunday, saying the handshakes and polite conversation the two leaders shared here were hardly “endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”

Mr. Obama, wrapping up a four-day swing through Latin America that included a summit meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders here, said he believed he had paved the way for “frank dialogue” with countries like Venezuela and Cuba, countries whose relations with the United States are, respectively, strained and practically nonexistent.

But, speaking at a news conference here, the president also sought to calibrate his message more finely, aware that his gestures to those nations may not sit well back at home. He said he has “great differences” with Mr. Chávez and insisted that freedom for the Cuban people would remain the guiding principle of his foreign policy.

“That’s our lodestone, our North Star,” Mr. Obama said.

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