The Venezuelan Foreign Relations Ministry issued a statement on Wednesday accusing the United States government of arbitrarily wielding its annual Trafficking in Persons Report as a political tool to injure its enemies and reward its allies.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department released its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2008, in which it asserts that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's "ideological sympathy" with the Colombian guerrillas "limited Venezuelan cooperation with Colombia in combating terrorism."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the U.S.'s policy of isolating Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez over the past eight years has failed.
