The Summit of the Americas, supposed to inaugurate a new era in relations between the United States and Latin America, will it be a missed opportunity?

After weeks of suspense, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has finally followed through on his threat and announced that he will not participate in the diplomatic event organized by Joe Biden, which begins Monday in Los Angeles.

"I'm not going to the top because we don't invite all the countries of America. I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries: exclusion," he told reporters. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are indeed not invited to the Summit of the Americas, a White House official confirmed to AFP on Monday, stressing "the reservations" of the United States in the face of "the lack of space democracy and respect for human rights" in these three countries.

Leaders from all over the region are however expected for a week of exchanges, Washington wishing to show the muscles against China, which is advancing its pawns in an area long considered by the Americans as their backyard.

A "safe" and "democratic" region

Joe Biden's main adviser for Latin America, Juan Gonzalez, told the press that the American president intended to "promote a vision of a secure" and "democratic" region, which "is basically in the interest strategy of the United States".

Joe Biden will, according to him, make announcements on economic cooperation and the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic as well as against climate change.

The 79-year-old Democrat also hopes to conclude a regional cooperation agreement on a politically explosive subject, which has earned him violent criticism from the Republican opposition: immigration.

The number of people seeking to enter the United States after fleeing poverty and violence in Central America and Haiti is on the rise.

The Biden administration has so far failed to deliver on its promise to pursue a revamped immigration policy, which it wants to be more humane than that of the Trump mandate.

Chinese competition

Washington has ensured the arrival of some major leaders, both the center-left Argentinian president, Alberto Fernandez, and the far-right Brazilian head of state, Jair Bolsonaro.

But the absence of the Mexican president will be perceived as "significant", according to Benjamin Gedan, who directs studies on Latin America at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

His threat to boycott had already caused "a truly unwelcome twist during the preparation for the summit, because it mobilized an enormous amount of American diplomatic energy", he notes.

Very popular in his country, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has indicated that he could meet, in July at the White House, President Joe Biden, with whom he claims to get along very well.

Benjamin Gedan also notes that, where China is investing heavily in the region, the American president has so far not announced any substantial economic effort.

"The summit will have to be judged by the yardstick of the United States' proposals in terms of trade access, loans and assistance to finance recovery and infrastructure in the region," said Benjamin Gedan.

"And on these points, the United States will disappoint, it is inevitable," he said.

Political influence at half mast  

The Summit of the Americas was launched in 1994 in Miami by President Bill Clinton, who wanted to launch a vast regional trade liberalization agreement.

But free trade is no longer on the rise, neither in the United States nor elsewhere, and in this regard, Joe Biden has not basically broken with the protectionist reflexes of his predecessor Donald Trump.

Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the Council of the Americas ("Council of the Americas", an organization which promotes commercial exchanges on the scale of the American continent) recently estimated, during a parliamentary hearing, that each edition of the Summit of Americas was "less ambitious" than the previous one.

Michael Shifter, a researcher at Inter-American Dialogue, sees the controversy over the guest list as a sign of waning US influence.

Especially since the political difficulties of Joe Biden, unpopular and who risks losing control of Congress after elections this fall, do not escape the leaders of the region.

The United States "still has a lot of 'soft power'", he notes, that is to say impact in terms of cultural content or consumption habits.

But their "political and diplomatic influence is declining every day".

With AFP

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