MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (AP) -- Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of this seaside resort Friday chanting "Get out Bush" as the U.S. president sought to promote free trade at a divided Summit of the Americas. Protests turned violent with about 1,000 people shattering shopfronts with clubs and pelting riot police with stones.

Demonstrators took to the streets hours before the summit started, shouting insults about Bush and chanting "Fascist Bush! You are the terrorist!"

Ramon Madrid, a hotel manager hurriedly closed up just three stores down from a pastry shop with shattered windows. He said he had never seen such violence in the bucolic seaside resort, Argentina's favored vacation spot.

"I don't like Bush, but this is too much. There is no need for violence," Madrid said.

Top-level negotiators at the summit have so far failed to agree on key language aimed at relaunching talks as soon as April for the proposed bloc stretching from Alaska to Argentina - an ambitious proposal originally raised in 1994 at the first Americas summit in Miami.

The trade zone would rival the European Union as the world's largest, but its creation has been stalled for years amid bickering over U.S. farm subsidies and other obstacles.

Chavez arrived in Argentina early Friday after a week of criticizing Bush and U.S. policies.

"Today the FTAA is dead and we are going to bury it here," Chavez declared after stepping off his plane. "We are here to change the course of history."

Chavez has said free trade is being forced on Latin American countries, and he has instead pushed for an anti-FTAA deal based on socialist ideals.

He has used Venezuela's oil wealth to push for regional solidarity, offering fuel with preferential financing to various Caribbean and Latin American countries. Venezuela is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and is the world's fifth largest oil exporter as well as a major supplier to the U.S. market.

Chavez also regularly claims the United States is trying to overthrow his government, something the U.S. denies.

Joking about his rivalry with Bush, the Venezuelan president has said he might try to sneak up and scare the U.S. president during the summit.

When asked how he would react to Chavez, Bush said he would be polite.

"That's what the American people expect their president to do, is to be a polite person," he said. "And if I run across him, I will do just that."

Bush, who met with Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, made no mention of free trade but said the two had a frank talk about Argentina's struggle to extricate itself from its financial meltdown.

Kirchner led a difficult renegotiation of more than $100 billion in public debt that was the largest sovereign default in history.

"The president was quite frank," Bush said.

He added that the U.S. was committed to exploring the summit's theme of job creation.

Some 40 percent of Argentina's 36 million people remain in poverty, and many blame trade liberalization for destroying local industries and causing a flood of cheap imports.

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