Quayle Talks Trade With Venezuela on 1st Leg of Latin Tour

Vice President Dan Quayle arrived Monday in Venezuela on the first leg of a Latin American tour aimed at promoting better trade relations between the region and the United States.

With Quayle were Trade Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher and a group of U.S. business leaders.

Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez took them to his beach house, La Guzmania in nearby Macuto, where they discussed trade and investment possibilities, Venezuelan officials said.

The agenda also included Venezuela’s role in President Bush’s Enterprise for the Americas Initiative, which aims at forming a free-trade zone from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Perez has praised the plan.

But Perez was likely to bring up the issue of pending U.S. trade sanctions against Venezuela, the officials said. Venezuela considers such sanctions protectionist and contrary to the spirit of the Bush initiative.

One trade dispute involves Venezuelan tuna exports, and the other involves cement.

Quayle said he is convinced that “the United States and Venezuela can do business.”

“There are many good trade opportunities and investment opportunities, and trade and investment translate into jobs,” he said at a news conference.

Quayle also congratulated Perez on the economic-reform program that he implemented in February, 1989, which virtually eliminated trade and investment restrictions to make the economy more attractive to foreign investors.

Mosbacher signed two grant agreements with Venezuelan officials under the U.S. Trade and Development Program, providing $700,000 to improve water systems and $300,000 for a feasibility study on aviation.

Quayle goes next to Brazil, Argentina and Haiti.