MIAMI- Free trade is key to ending Latin American poverty, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Saturday while courting support from the Cuban-American and growing Venezuelan-American communities. "Trade lifts all nations that participate," Romney said when asked how he would end poverty and other conditions that have given rise to leaders such as Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, who has been a close ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, noted that the Bush administration had sought free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and Peru, but the Democratic-controlled Congress failed to approve them.
"We’d like to see more agreements, not fewer, to improve the economic well-being of our neighborhood," he said.
Later, Romney criticized Democrat Barack Obama for saying last week that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Syria and Cuba.
Romney told 350 people at a Seminole County GOP fundraiser Saturday that the next president should meet with friendly nations first.
"Surely the next American president would want to reach out to our friends around the world, particular here in our own hemisphere," he said, specifically mentioning Colombia and Mexico. "We want to reach out to these people, re-establish our relationships and trust."
Obama was asked during a debate last week if he would meet - without precondition - with the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Venezuela. The Illinois senator said he would.
Romney said he would not restore relations with Cuba until it had free elections, political prisoners were freed and individual rights were restored.
South Florida’s Venezuelan-American community holds far fewer votes than its Cuban-American counterpart. But it is growing, has cash and has a strong influence in South Florida’s Spanish-language airwaves. More than 80,000 Venezuelans live in Florida, roughly half of all Venezuelans in this country, according to the U.S. Census.
Romney said Chavez’s push to nationalize some Venezuelan industries has cooled international interest in Latin American investment, and the U.S. must show its commitment to the region.
"Following 9/11, we understandably focused our attention on the Middle East and have not paid enough attention to our interests in the region, our own hemisphere," he said.
Romney also spoke to veterans of the ill-fated 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion at their small museum in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood and promised to seek out their intelligence expertise on Cuba if elected president.
But it wasn’t his foreign policy as much as his opposition to abortion and emphasis on family that supporters said they found attractive.
"Everyone talks about family values, but Romney has demonstrated them with his five sons and his long marriage," said Adam Roig, 51, who works in medical technology.
Meanwhile, both Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will miss a live national televised debate Sept. 17 sponsored by CNN.
As part of an arrangement with the video-sharing Web site YouTube, questions for the debate would come from the online video community, an element Romney seems uneasy about.
"I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman," Romney said earlier this week, referencing a Democratic event held in South Carolina on Monday that included a question about global warming from a snowman.