By K.T. Arasu
Rueters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Iran may be dueling with Washington over its nuclear ambitions, but when the country desperately needed corn last month, it turned to the United States.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made no secret of his disdain for U.S. President George W. Bush, calling him a donkey and even Satan, but when millers in Caracas need wheat to make bread, they go shopping for American supplies.

Nations like Iran, Venezuela, Syria and Cuba have icy diplomatic ties with Washington but they do not let politics stand in the way of importing competitively-priced food or feed ingredients from the United States.

The world’s largest exporter of corn, soybeans and wheat, the United States ships its agricultural commodities across the globe, to friends and foes from Spain to Iraq to Sudan.

“They want to make sure they feed their people. They don’t want to screw with that. Politics is politics,” said veteran grains analyst Don Roose of brokerage U.S. Commodities.

“They know they are buying from people they don’t like, but they don’t want a revolt because they can’t feed the people,” he said, adding that tight global supplies of wheat was also pushing some countries to buy from the United States.

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