The Government of the United States explained this Wednesday that it is still making “final considerations” about inviting or not the States of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela to the IX Summit of the Americaswhich will take place next week in Los Angeles, California, but assured that “soon” they will announce the final list of guests.
“The important thing for us about the Summit is why we are meeting and why we are going to focus on our responsibilities to seek a more inclusive and prosperous future for our hemisphere. We do not focus so much on who is invited and who is not, but on the results we want to achieve,” Juan González, the main adviser for Latin America to US President Joe Biden, said in a conference call.
The presence at the Summit of these regimes, considered by the US as anti-democratic, has been requested mainly by the president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorwho —even— has conditioned his participation in the meeting.
González pointed out that President Biden “personally wants the presence of the president of Mexico” at the Summit. Therefore, “we have had very respectful conversations with Mexico and the Mexican president.”
They also do not clarify if they will invite Guaidó
González also did not clarify whether he will invite Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to the Summit, whom the US “continues to recognize as interim president” of Venezuela, and has supported since 2019 to lead a dialogue that will lead that country to “free elections.” , because, he valued, in the region “there are Governments with different visions” with which the US is holding talks.
“The position of the host is important, but we also want to facilitate a broad regional conversation and make sure that we are integrating all points of view,” González said.
On May 27, the presidents Daniel Ortega, from Nicaragua; Miguel Diaz-Canel, from Cuba; and Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela; took advantage of the XXI Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), held in Havana, to criticize the decision of the United States to exclude them from the Summit of the Americas.
The Nicaraguan president denounced that the policy of the United States is “tyrannical, imperial and terrorist” and affirmed that the Summit of the Americas ceased to be a “useful weapon” to apply his Monroe Doctrine. “They are experiencing a moment of schizophrenia and they do not realize that this is no longer possible” because “in the world there is no longer room for hegemonism,” said the Nicaraguan leader, who participated virtually.
A regional pact on migration
The objective of the United States at the Summit of the Americas is to close a regional pact on migration, although other issues such as the economy, the climate crisis, the state of democracies in the region or the covid-19 pandemic will also be addressed.
The vision that Washington will take to the Summit is that irregular migration is not just a border issue between the United States and Mexico, but “a regional problem that affects almost all countries” in the Americas, and will seek for all nations to assume their “responsibilities,” Gonzalez said.
“We seek to see what the regional challenge is from the context of sharing responsibility and providing economic support to countries that have been impacted by flows of refugee migrants,” González warned. Also, “somehow addressing the lack of opportunity and insecurity within countries, which is what drives migration,” she added.
