President Joe Biden hopes the Summit of the Americas lays new foundations with Latin America and the Caribbean, but starts this Monday on quicksand due to boycott threats from countries like Mexico, in the midst of a migration crisis.
(Summit of the Americas puts the region in check due to intense controversies)
Its opening in Los Angeles, the city that is home to the largest Hispanic community in the United States, has become the cradle of misunderstandings. Well, Biden’s insinuation a few weeks ago that he would not invite Cuba or the leaders of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, whom he considers illegitimate since his re-election, opened the box of thunder.
Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and the 14-nation Caribbean bloc have questioned their assistance if those countries are excluded, which the United States says violate the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
(The Summit of the Peoples: the event protests the exclusions of the USA.)
Biden is extremely concerned about an absence of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at this ninth meeting of the countries of the region. “Our relationship with Mexico is and will continue to be positive,” and the US president “personally wants” López Obrador to attend, Juan González, the White House’s top adviser for the Americas, said this week.
Due to the migratory problem, The United States needs López Obrador, and he “sees that the position of challenging Biden makes him appear as a Latin American leader,” stated Michael Shifter, a professor at Georgetown University. “All the drama about who is going to participate and who is not and for what reasons -he adds- shows that there is a great disconnection” and that the United States “loses influence especially in South America, but also in Mexico”.
So is China, which has become a consolidated partner for most Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and that of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, joined the call to extend the invitations to everyone, but they will attend the meeting.
Nicolás Maduro said that the Caribbean country and the other excluded nations will be represented at the Summit of the Americas by “the voice” of the Argentine president and assured that it seems “very good” to bring the voice of the absent nations to the conclave.
Despite the disagreement, it is possible to achieve promises on issues such as economic growth, post-pandemic recovery, the fight against global warming and especially migration.
Without going any further, this Monday in southern Mexico, a caravan of 11,000 Venezuelan migrants plans to head towards the United States, whose border some 7,000 undocumented migrants try to cross every day. And migration could take its toll on Biden in November’s midterm elections, in which he could lose control of Congress.
Washington hopes to reach an agreement on a Declaration on migration, to integrate migrants in host countries and better manage the crisis.
Economic development is another general concern, but it requires the disbursement of funds and it remains to be seen if the United States surprises with an announcement.
“I do not see the Administration appearing with strong financial commitments”, but rather “competing on equal terms with at least a certain number of partners” such as Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia, said Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program of the Inter-American Dialogue, specifying that he does not rule out including Mexico in the bloc.
On the diplomatic level, the Summit, which will conclude on Friday, will allow Biden to meet with some presidents. Among them the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of former US President Donald Trump and with whom the current tenant of the White House has not met in almost a year and a half that he has been in office.
The success of the Summit, for Rebecca Bill Chavez, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, will depend on whether it serves “as a launching pad for commitment to the region” and “focuses on issues that resonate” with it, on “shared priorities” such as the migration.
AFP
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