A friend of our enemy is...our friend?

Shock and confusion here as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announces plans to replace Bolivian imports of soy and sunflower oil with American products.
Shock because it means $40 million in lost income for South America's poorest country, according to news reports.
Confusion because Chavez is a big pain in the U.S.'s ass and lots of U.S. dollars have been to counter his popular Leftist and anti-Yanqui movement. It is strange he would favor U.S. trade.
Several State Department officials have accused Chavez and Fidel (yeah, that one) with funding the campaign of populist Bolivian presidential candidate Evo Morales, a coca farmer.
So Morales, by the transitive property, has become a pain the ass for the U.S. -- and the ass of the current administration of the Harvard-educated, neo-liberal and IMF-friendly interim President Eduardo Rodriguez (though he has been very muted since the same Leftist movement drove the last president, Carlos Mesa, from power in June and his neo-liberal predecessor two years before).
Here's why the U.S. considers Morales a threat: Aside from admitting that his campaign will be funded by the crop used to make cocaine, Morales favors the nationalization of Bolivia's natural gas industry and, not surprisingly, the U.S. and IMF don't like that.
(The embassy wants me to lead a seminar in the Morales stronghold El Alto on how citizen reporters can report fairly on popular indigenous movements and free trade. I will try to do just that.)
The punchline of the story is that a trade official in the U.S.-friendly administration is now pleading with Morales to ask his "friend" Chavez to change his mind.