US President Joe Biden will present a proposal for an eco-friendly economic partnership to America’s leaders on Thursday as he prepares for the first official meeting with climate change skeptic President Jair Bolsonaro.
Biden will meet Bolsonaro at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, which is intended to underline the renewed US commitment to Latin America after years of comparative neglect under the former Trump administration.
Committed to helping economies grow “from the bottom up and out of the middle, not from the top down” at the summit’s opening, Biden said investing in renewable energy will be key to that.
“The American partnership will tackle the climate crisis with the same mindset we brought to work in the United States,” Biden told the assembled leaders. “When I hear about climate, I hear about jobs. High-paying, high-quality jobs will help accelerate our transition to the green economy of the future.”
Biden is hosting the regional summit that deals with internal and external challenges ranging from rising inflation to the gun control debate after more mass shootings and the war in Ukraine.
However, instead of promoting regional unity, the summit grappled with diplomatic conflicts triggered by the exclusion of US dissidents Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua on the grounds that they have poor human rights and democracy records.
This upset the allies of the trio of left-wing countries, especially Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who made the threat that all nations would not attend if not invited.
Other leaders said they would do the same, reducing the list of visiting heads of state and government to 21.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard revisited the issue on Wednesday, saying it was a “grave mistake” for bar states and that the decision took the summit back to 2012, when Cuba was not invited last.
Biden addressed the guest list discussion near the start of his speech before the two-day talks.
“Our territory is vast and diverse. We don’t always agree on everything,” he said. But because we are democracies, we settle our disagreements with mutual respect and dialogue.”
The partial boycott highlighted the first meeting between Biden and Bolsonaro, who is a fan of former President Donald Trump, and this week once again cast doubt on Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Biden also referred to a summit statement on immigration scheduled for Friday, calling it an “innovative and integrated new approach” with shared responsibility across the hemisphere.
However, he gave few details apart from saying that the initiative would “increase opportunities for safe and orderly immigration across the region and crack down on criminal smuggling,” a major concern among officials in the region.
source: Noticias
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