PORT OF SPAIN – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a longtime critic of the United States, offered a book with a pointed theme Saturday to US President Barack Obama at an Americas summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

The book, Las Venas Abiertas de America Latina (Open Veins of Latin America) by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, is about the region's colonial past and exploitation by the world's big powers – themes hammered constantly by Chavez, who accuses the United States of "imperialist" policies.

However the gift might have been meant as another conciliatory gesture from the South American leader, whose country is a major oil exporter to the United States.

On Friday, at the opening of the fifth Summit of the Americas, Chavez and Obama shook hands in a cordial, smiling manner.

The Venezuelan presidency quickly supplied photos of the moment, with an official saying it was very "brief."

Chavez was said to have told Obama at that moment: "I shook hands with [former US president George W.] Bush with this hand eight years ago. I want to be your friend."

Obama responded by thanking Chavez, the official said.

Newspapers around the world ran the photo of the encounter with speculation that the long antagonism between Washington and Caracas might be overcome.

Some of the optimism stemmed from a sudden, unexpected thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba in recent days.

Both Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have said they were open to starting talks focused on the issues of human rights and political prisoners in Cuba.

Chavez is Cuba's most vociferous ally.