Biden invites CEOs to invest in Latin America

LOS ANGELES – The President Joe Biden on Thursday he challenged corporate executives to make long-term investments in Latin America and promised help of its administration to build economic systems more resistant that will put people to work and get the countries of the region out of trouble.

Biden spoke as he welcomed Latin American leaders to a three-day regional summit, carrying on the meeting despite it being refused by the leaders of Mexico and the three countries that make up the northern trianglewho refused to participate.

“I know the real barriers you have to deal with,” Biden said at the meeting. CEO across the region who was in Los Angeles for the 9th Summit of the Americas.

“That’s why we want to work with you to level the playing field.”

Biden said his administration will work to open up new private sector investment areas that are “not only economically viable, but highly desirable.”

And the president said leaders should make decisions not as a favor to him or other leaders in the region.

It is in “their obvious economic interest,” he said.

Biden hoped to bring together hemisphere leaders as a demonstration of American strength to tackle corruption, poverty, health problems, climate change and migration.

Instead, his refusal to invite several authoritarian leaders caused a boycott from several key nations.

As the meeting was convened Thursday with those who agreed to attend, diplomatic failure loomed over the US role in helping a region ravaged by political instability, natural disasters and the aftermath of the pandemic.

“To say the obvious, our region is large and diverse,” Biden told leaders Wednesday night.

“We don’t always agree on everything, but since we are democracies, let’s resolve our disagreements with mutual respect and dialogue.

President Donald Trump he took actions that deepened the distrust felt by Latin American leaders during his four years in office.

Abandonment o delayed foreign aid in the region, threatened Mexico with tariffs, used racist rhetoric, and implemented tough enforcement border restrictions considered illegal and inhumane by many.

Biden was elected in part on the promise of a new kind of leadership vis-à-vis the countries and peoples of Latin America.

But while his rhetoric is very different from Trump’s, he had problematic encounter with his immigration and border agenda, leaving him less to demonstrate his ambitions than many of his supporters expected.

Some of Trump’s most important efforts to prevent immigrants from entering the United States remain in place, constant irritants to the country’s relations with its neighbors.

The Biden administration is still driving people away at the border using the title 42 health regulations that its predecessor put in place during the pandemic.

And despite trying to put an end to it, Biden continues to pursue a policy that compels some asylum seekers waiting in dangerous fields in Mexico.

Biden’s promised global overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws remains stalled in Congress, with no prospects for progress.

But White House officials said the president was confident that, despite absences from the summit, the United States could play great role to help make the region more prosperous.

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, told Air Force One reporters Wednesday that the United States would be a best companion for Latin American countries compared to China, which seeks influence in the region.

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