As if president George Bush did not have enough troubles at home, with soaring petrol prices after the impact of Hurricane Katrina adding to his falling popularity over Iraq, he now has to contend with a cheeky offer from an old foe, president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, to sell cheap fuel to poor Americans.
The plan was announced after Mr Chavez met the radical black pastor Rev Jesse Jackson in Caracas, through whose charity networks the fuel could be channelled by a Venezuelan oil company with 10,000 outlets in the US. It comes days after the ultra-conservative US television evangelist Pat Robertson, a close political associate of Mr Bush, suggested Mr Chavez be assassinated for defying American policy. "We have the ability to take him out," he told his audience on August 22nd, "and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator." Mr Chavez wants Mr Robertson to be extradited on terrorism charges to Venezuela. The White House says there is no legal basis for this - although it has firmly dissociated itself from Mr Robertson's outburst.
Mr Chavez can afford to make such commitments because of his country's huge oil wealth. It is now the world's fifth largest producer, with estimated cash reserves of $31 billion; experts say its oil reserves could exceed Saudi Arabia's. This wealth has sustained Mr Chavez's flamboyant left-wing populist programme at home, where his popularity remains undimmed despite successive attempts to unseat him with US support. In fact Venezuelan oil is set to become even more important for the US if Middle Eastern supplies are affected by spreading instability from Iraq.
In recent days Mr Chavez has also offered free eye treatment to poor citizens of any country in the Western hemisphere, including up to 150,000 US citizens. Along with president Fidel Castro of Cuba he has set a target of saving the sight of 600,000 people a year for 10 years as part of a campaign against commercialised medicine. Along with the offer of cheap fuel to poorer Americans, this is an imaginative way to encourage practical solidarity and attract political sympathy at a time when Mr Chavez's star is higher in Latin America than that of his fellow radical, president Lula da Silva of Brazil, which has been dimmed by a funding scandal.
It is an aggravating prospect for Mr Bush, whose own nationalistic rhetoric about the "war on terror" has distracted attention from growing inequalities at home. It will be interesting to see if these offers are taken up.