Maduro Wants to Form a New Regional Block Allied with Russia and China

CARACAS – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro proposed the creation of a new international bloc involving Latin American and Caribbean countries that would have close ties with Russia and China.

During his annual address to the Venezuelan parliament on Friday, Maduro said he had recently spoken with the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Argentina about creating a new regional organization.

According to Maduro, “The time has come to unite efforts and avenues in Latin America and the Caribbean to move forward in the formation of blocs of strong political power, economic power that speaks to the world.”

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Venezuela’s president went on to say the bloc would create a “new power pole”, and would ally itself with Russia and China whose leaders Maduro calls his “big brother”.

“Such an alliance would consist of a community with a common destiny that our older brother President Xi Jinping spoke of, or the multipolar, multicentric world that our older brother, President Vladimir Putin, spoke of,” Maduro said.

“For this world to arrive, a united and developed Latin American and Caribbean block is needed,” he stressed.

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President Putin has repeatedly criticized the US-dominated concept of a “unipolar world”.

In September, he claimed efforts to achieve such a configuration had “taken a very bad shape”.