a change from 61 unbroken years of Colorado party rule, Chavez and Correa were together in the country to support another regional left leader. Chavez tried to woo the president with promises to fill Paraguay's imported oil gap. President Lugo has supported Venezuela's entry into Mercosur; however, the Colorado Party's influence in Paraguay's Congress and Senate retards this expansion. Stratfor also theorized that Chavez was trying to pry Lugo away from Brazil as the two were working on the Itaipu energy partnership. Doing this, they said, would weaken the other South American giant's, Brazil, efforts to extend its influence throughout Latin America. Paraguay and Venezuela restarted negotiations on an unpaid debt of $250 million owed by Paraguayan oil company Petropar to its counterpart Petróleos de Venezuela after the Presidents of Paraguay and Venezuela met to deal with the financing. In September 2009 Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo revoked plans for US troops to hold joint military exercises and development projects. President Lugo referenced strong regional opposition from countries such as Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador to the expansion of US military bases in Colombia in his decision. President Hugo Chávez is an outspoken critic of US "imperialism", military activity and expansion in Latin America. Uruguay In August 2009 it was alleged that the Venezuelan government was purchasing thousands of books from a company belonging to the wife of the Uruguayan presidential candidate José Mujica, for nearly 100 times the actual price of the books Nicaragua Hugo Chávez publicly supported Nicaraguan candidate Daniel Ortega and the left wing FSLN party in Nicaragua., and offered oil at preferential prices to town mayors belonging to the Sandinista Party. Relations with the U.S. The historically friendly diplomatic relationship between the Venezuela and the United States deteriorated steadily following the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999. When George W. Bush became President of the United States in 2001, relations between the United States and Venezuela grew even more tense. Relations between the two countries have further been degraded after Chavez accused the United States of being behind the 2002 military coup that briefly ousted him from power and hit an all-time low following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While in office, President Chávez was highly critical of US economic and foreign policy and often referred to the United States derogatorily as "The Empire". He has referred to President George W. Bush as a