Your Fears Are Baseless

That assassination thing was just a misunderstanding. Trust us. Reuters (08.08.05):

"The United States is considering punishing Venezuela with sanctions for breaking off work with U.S. anti-drug agents in the world's top cocaine-exporting region, the State Department said on Monday. In a new blow to fraying ties between the United States and a key oil supplier, President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he had suspended cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration because it was unnecessary and accused the U.S. agency of spying on his government." U.S. mulls sanctions on Venezuela over drug move

Balderdash, says the US. "'The fears are baseless,' State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters. 'I think it's pretty clear to us that the motivation for this is not the accusation itself ... The motivation is an effort to detract from the government's increasingly deficient record of cooperation.'" Seeing as how as of May, 2005, the US is currently importing over 13% of its crude oil per day from Venezuela, we probably should be more concerned they'd impose sanctions on us:

Country	bbl/day (1000s)	% of total
Mexico	1,748	18.317
Canada	1,722	18.045
Saudi Arabia	1,430	14.985
Venezuela	1,273	13.340
Nigeria	1,111	11.642
Iraq	588	6.162
Angola	341	3.573
Ecuador	238	2.494
Kuwait	213	2.232
United Kingdom	194	2.033
Russia	185	1.939
Algeria	152	1.593
Norway	117	1.226
Colombia	116	1.216
Brazil	115	1.205
Totals	9,543	100.000

Yep. That'd be 1.273 million barrels a day.