SANTIAGO, Chile – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China's financing of President Nicolás Maduro's government is prolonging the crisis in Venezuela.
Pompeo kicked off a four-country tour of Latin America on Friday in Chile. He met with President Sebastián Piñera in Santiago, where they discussed Venezuela's crisis and the U.S.-China trade war, among other issues.
Pompeo said China is a major U.S. trading partner, but that its "trade activities often are deeply connected to their national security mission, their technological goals, their desire to steal intellectual property, to have forced technology transfer, to engage in activity that is not economic."
He also criticized Russia's links with authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.