When the United States announced last year that it would host the 2022 Americas Summit, officials had high hopes that the event would help repair the damage done to relations during the Trump era and reassert US priority over China’s growing influence in Latin America.
But on the eve of next week’s meeting in Los Angeles, US President Joe Biden faces a challenge to make the summit a success, which has been plagued with problems before it even starts.
Analysts say ideological disagreement over who to invite, skepticism about US commitment to Latin America, and low expectations for big deals on issues like immigration and economic cooperation are already clouding the scene.
“The Americans fundamentally misinterpreted the situation because they didn’t anticipate that there would be an uproar over who would be there,” said Andres Rozental, former Mexican deputy foreign minister.
A US official admitted, anonymously, that the preparations were “more complicated than we imagined”.
The lower level events will begin on Monday. Biden will arrive on Wednesday to officially kick off the first US-hosted summit since the inaugural meeting in 1994.
Biden wants to forge a shared vision after years of relative neglect created by his predecessor Donald Trump’s ‘USA First’ policy, who did not attend the last summit in Lima in 2018.
These hopes were dashed by the controversy over the invitations. As hosts, the United States can choose who to invite.
Initial plans showed that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, which are hostile to the United States, would be excluded as undemocratic. This upset leaders like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said he would not go unless every country in the Americas was invited.
Washington rejected the participation of Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is not yet clear whether Cuba, led by the communists, will be represented.
Most regional leaders have signaled that they will join, but reactions show that many Latin American countries are no longer willing to follow Washington’s leadership as unquestioningly as in the past.
US officials say the guest list confusion will end and the summit will make progress no matter who attends.
Under pressure from record numbers of migrants on his southern border, Biden is expected to seek compromises to stop these flows, particularly from Mexico and Central America. Biden’s advisers say they are working on an “ambitious” immigration declaration. But a major breakthrough seems unlikely.
A senior Biden administration official tried to downplay the centrality of immigration at the summit, saying US relations with Latin America are much broader.
US officials also want to defend Washington as Latin America’s main economic partner to neutralize Chinese attacks.
Experts attending a U.S. Senate subcommittee session at the summit scolded the administration for not doing more to improve relations with the rest of America.
The Biden administration is targeting regional initiatives to strengthen proximity to supply chains, including medical equipment, and expand the internet and clean energy.
At the same time, there is a US effort to deepen regional oil and gas supplies to drain the cash flow used to finance the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine and to divert the West from Russian energy.
Former Brazilian ambassador to China and Malaysia, Marcos Caramuru, said he did not expect the summit to bring much improvement in diplomatic relations and argued that Latin America is not as important to Washington as Asia.
source: Noticias
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