AMLO confirms that he will not go to the meeting in LA, but announces a visit to Biden in July

Emir Olivares and Alonso Urrutia

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, June 7, 2022, p. 3

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador finally confirmed that he will not attend the ninth Summit of the Americas due to Washington’s position of not convening all the nations of the hemisphere, by leaving out Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

The representation of Mexico in that forum, he remarked, will be headed by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, who on Tuesday will give details on the agenda that the Mexican administration will take to the meeting that began yesterday in Los Angeles, California, and will take place throughout the week.

Instead, the president reported that next July he will visit his American counterpart, Joe Biden, at the White House, to whom he will raise several issues: the integration of all of America, with a focus on the good neighbor policy in order to achieve Simón’s dream Bolívar, including the United States and Canada.

He will also expose the importance of achieving immigration reform in the United States, support for Central America to address the causes of migration, economic integration and routes to counteract inflation.

I am not going because not all the countries of the Americas are invited and I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries: exclusion, wanting to dominate for no reason, not respecting the sovereignty of countries, independence of each country, and there can be no Summit of the Americas if all the countries of the American continent do not participate; or there may be, but we consider that it is to continue with the old policy of interventionism, of disrespect for nations and their peopleshe emphasized yesterday in his morning conference.

He considered that President Biden he is a good manbut it is pressured by extremist groups of the Republican Party, by some sectors of the Democrats – such as Senator Bob Menéndez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – and by leaders of the Cuban community in the United States, particularly in Florida, this in an electoral context. But enough of that, already, if not, when are there going to be changes?.

He censured once again that an example of that US policy is the six-decade economic blockade against Cuba.

How is it that a blockade is going to be maintained that prevents food from reaching the Cuban people, that prevents medicine from reaching it? That is a type of genocide, a tremendous violation of human rights. And everything remains that when it comes to the issue of the blockade in the UN, all the countries vote to lift it, (but) one or two prevent it and since they have the right to veto they do not pass the resolution, but all those who voted in against (and) with that they are satisfied or feel good, they feel that they have already fulfilled. It would be the last straw if we attended a summit in that context. That is contrary to Mexico’s foreign policy, to what our Constitution establishes, to non-intervention, to the self-determination of peoples.

López Obrador lamented the situation and not being able to meet with Biden, but stressed that he does not accept hegemony, neither from China nor from Russia nor from the United States, because all countries, no matter how small, are free and independent.

He estimated that the position of the Republicans will not help them in the electoral context and stressed that he will not remain silent in the face of offenses against migrants and Mexicans.

“Why keep up the lawsuits of the cold war? What perhaps this is a matter of the political leadership? Is it a case of ideologies, dogmas, fanaticism, hatred? (…) They say: ‘human rights are violated in Cuba, in Guatemala, I don’t know where.’ So what? A blockade of a people by a power is not a flagrant violation of human rights? Therefore, no to the summit and a hug to President Biden. I understand their situation, it is a policy that they have applied for decades, but if ‘enough’ is not said, they will not find a way out”.