By Michael Brand
Every three to four years a summit is hosted to bring together the leaders of the Western Hemisphere. The Summit is being held this week in Los Angeles, and so far has divided leaders more than it has brought them together.
The issues started before the summit began. President Biden did not invite three major countries in the hemisphere - Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua - hoping to take a stand against human rights abuses and authoritarianism seen in all three of the countries. However, the move ended up being a dividing one as Mexico dropped out of the conference. Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador explained his reasoning stating: “I am not going to the summit because not all American countries are invited and I believe the need to change the policy that has been in place for centuries: The exclusion, the desire to dominate without any reason, the disrespect of countries’ sovereignty (and) the independence of each country” (Sullivan et al). Following Mexico’s lead, “leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and several Caribbean states have also declared that they won’t go” ensuring that it won’t be a Summit of the Americas, but rather a Summit of America’s regional allies (Kirk). The lack of attendance at the summit may make it one of the least unifying and successful in history.
This year’s summit had the theme of “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future” but so far has been focused solely on migration. On Tuesday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris committed “nearly $2 billion in private investment directed to three Central American countries as part of the Biden administration’s strategy to reduce migration, more than doubling previously announced commitments” (Bierman). But Harris’ action seems to be the only one of note through the first two days of the convention. Instead, focus remains on the lack of unity at the summit.
Even regional allies have deemed the United States exclusion a misstep. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pointed out, it is “extremely important that we have an opportunity to engage with our fellow hemispheric partners — some like-minded, some less like-minded” (Wootson Jr.). The whole point of a summit is to bring different countries with differing viewpoints together, to solve problems in a cohesive manner. Excluding countries makes that impossible, in fact as Chilean President Gabriel Boric explained, we are “reinforcing the position that these other countries take in their own countries” (Shakil and Scherer). The only way to curb human rights abuses in countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua is to bring them to the table; refusing to talk to them, or negotiate with them, leaves millions of people in our hemisphere at risk of the human rights abuses the summit was supposed to solve.
In a way the breakdown of the summit is a tad ironic. The last Summit of the Americas, held in Peru, was broken apart by an American President refusing to go. This time it was broken apart by an American President who refused to let a handful of countries go. Ultimately while Biden preached before the Summit about forming connections instead of reverting back to Trump era America First policies, it seems that the result from both Presidents has been the same: division.
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