The US yesterday threatened to block a record-breaking arms deal under which Spain would sell ships and aircraft to Venezuela, in another sign of increasingly fraught relations between the Bush administration and the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez.
The US claimed that a €1.3bn (£890m) arms deal with Mr Chávez, who is a vocal supporter of Cuba's Fidel Castro and a fierce critic of the Bush administration, could destabilise the region. The deal, due to be signed in Caracas on Monday, includes four coastal patrol ships, four corvettes, 10 C-295 transport planes and two maritime surveillance planes. It would be a massive boost to Spain's ailing shipyard industry and to the rest of its defence industry.
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