The summits are not endpoints. They are the mechanism by which two countries, which can neither resolve their differences nor afford to rupture them, manage the interval between crises.
[O]il, CITGO and the control of gold remain the key pieces on a geopolitical chessboard, with the suffering of the Venezuelan people relegated to the background.
The typical American citizen is today probably more likely to be killed by a home-grown extremist shooting up a school classroom, than by a religious zealot-turned-kamikaze pilot.