`Sitting atop a sea of oil, and carrying on his Bolivarian Revolution -- Chávez's pan-Latin populist offshoot of Marxism, named for revered Venezuelan founding father and freedom fighter Simón Bolivar -- he has typically regarded the U.S. icily for its free market policies and foreign interventions. He famously called former U.S. President George W. Bush "El Diablo", and ridiculed President Barack Obama as a "clown."

 

He has even suggested that the CIA might be responsible for his cancer.