Leaders from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean region are set to meet this week in Los Angeles, in what is likely to turn into an embarrassment for the U.S. and the Biden administration.
The Assoiated Press is saying there will likely be a shift from discussing policy changes such as migration, climate change and galloping inflation to something Hollywood thrives on: the drama of guessing who will end up attending the event.
The summit will start on June 7 and will run through June 10. The U.S. is hosting the summit for the first time since its launch in 1994, in Miami, as part of an effort to galvanize support for a free trade agreement stretching from Alaska to Patagonia. This year’s theme is “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future.”
There are supposedly going to be three forums that will guide the summit;s direction, reports NBC News. The three forums are the Ninth Civil Society Forum, the Sixth Young Americas Forum, and the Fourth CEO Summit of the Americas. All the forums are meant to foster dialog between countries leaders.
Which world leaders are going to be attending?
First of all, President Biden and Vice-president Kamela Harris have been working the phones for the past week or so, speaking with the leaders of Argentina and Honduras, both of whom initially expressed support for Mexico’s proposed boycott.
Former Senator Christopher Dodd has also crisscrossed the region as a special adviser for the summit, in the process convincing far right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was a staunch ally of Trump but hasn’t once spoken to Biden, to belatedly confirm his attendance.
Abd contrary to popular belief – the decision to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the summit is not Joe Biden’s idea. At the summit in Quebec City in 2001, the delegates declared that any break with democratic order is an “insurmountable obstacle” to future participation in the summit process.
This is because the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela aren’t even active members of the Washington-based Organization of the American States, which organizes the summit.
“This should’ve been a talking point from the beginning,” said former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, who in a long diplomatic career attended several summits. “It’s not a U.S. imposition. It was consensual. If leaders want to change that, then we should have a conversation first.”
And with Washington only wanting democratic governments to attend the summit, it was a shot out of left-field when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sparked a backlash from other countries in the region when he said he wouldn’t attend unless the three countries were invited, reports the Financial Times.
López Obrador has said all governments in the Americas should be invited whatever their political stripes. He has threatened to boycott the summit and has been backed by the leaders of some smaller nations in the Caribbean.
The Summit – A success or a flop?
With all the constant bickering over who will attend and why they might not attend, the real purpose of the summit has been relegated to the back burner. So-called experts are saying that because of the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the event could turn into a embarrassment for U.S. President Joe Biden.
Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister who now teaches at New York University, says it’s clear from the last-minute wrangling over the guest list that Latin America is not a priority for the U.S. president.
And there have been what could be called “snubs” lately, like failing to match Russia and China with vaccine donations to Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, although the U.S. did eventually provide 70 million doses to the hemisphere.
Biden has also maintained the Trump-era restrictions on migration, reinforcing the view that it was neglecting its own neighbors, although it was due to post-pandemic economy issues, among others.
It may be that Mr. Shannon has the best observation at this point. Speaking about Biden, he says, “More than speeches, he will need to listen.”
