Companies to Chávez: Pay Up

Venezuela has seized the property of more than a dozen American companies in the past 20 months, including Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, McDonald’s, and Hilton Hotels—part of the president’s ongoing nationalization project that has appropriated more than $23.3 billion in assets since 2006. Chávez usually offers compensation, but it’s seldom paid. As a result, enraged firms such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are seeking tens of billions of dollars of relief from the World Bank’s International Center for Settlements of Investment Disputes.

Now the companies may have a powerful new advocate on their side. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the new chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is on a collision course with the Obama administration over the seizures. While the White House prefers to take a quieter public line on Chávez, Ros-Lehtinen is pushing for better protection of American property in Venezuela. Whether or not she gets Obama to take a tougher public stance, her base (and the business community) will surely relish the fight.