Cemex Sinks in Venezuela

The tug of war over Cemex's assets in Venezuela continues. Actually, any sentence with "Cemex's assets in Venezuela" needs to be written in the past tense, as the company no longer has any. Chávez sent National Guard troops to take over the cement plants a couple of days ago. Evidently, it was a quite party.

Nationalization supporters who had gathered outside a Cemex plant in eastern Venezuela sang the national anthem while fireworks exploded overhead, according to news reports.

This part of the LA Times story is quite misleading:

The bad blood between Mexico and Venezuela has been brewing for some time. Last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Calderon publicly chastised Venezuela for moving "toward the past" with "harmful" socialist policies.

That slip of the tongue a few months after Calderón got to office was one of the very few examples of Mexico aiming any fire at Venezuela. (And if I remember correctly, it was an indirect criticism. I don't think he mentioned Venezuela's or Chávez's name in regard to the harmful socialism, though I may be mistaken.) Calderón may be right-of-center, but the salient aspect of his foreign policy has been a more accommodating approach toward Cuba and Venezuela. And look what it got him.