Biden to promote new plan for region at sparsely attended Summit of the Americas

Senior U.S. officials revealed on Tuesday that President Joe Biden will use the upcoming Summit of the Americas as a platform to seek regional consensus on a new economic plan to build up the region’s economy and help slow the flow of migrants along the country’s southern border.  

Although officials provided few details about the president’s plan, they noted that Biden’s primary message will be that “we can’t do business as usual” in the hemisphere.

One of the president’s stated goals for the summit is to help the region recover from the economic disaster brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.

"We're going to use the summit to align regional leaders, the private sector and civil society behind a new and ambitious economic agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean that I think looks to build upon the existing free trade agreements that we have in the Western Hemisphere," one official said, clarifying that the administration planned to take advantage of pre-existing trade deals such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

But amid Republican backlash for failing to secure the southern border, Biden is expected to seek help in stemming the flow of migrants from the so-called Northern Triangle.  

According to a Reuters report, the summit will publish a “declaration” addressing migration.  

"It will be non-binding, but it will be very forward-leaning," one official noted.

The president’s message will not be received by all of the region’s leaders, however, and several leaders threatened to boycott the summit, which is scheduled to be held between June 6-10 in Los Angeles.

Last month, the State Department announced that the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan regimes will likely be excluded from the Summit of the Americas – a regional summit set to be held in Los Angeles in June.

Speaking to a small group of reporters, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said “they are unlikely to be there,” adding that the summit was open to the Western Hemisphere’s democracies.

Shortly after the announcement was made, however, leftist leaders from across the region – including Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil -- began urging Washington to allow all of the region’s delegations to participate, threatening to boycott the summit if their demands weren’t met.

In order to avoid an international embarrassment -- which could show the waning influence the U.S. now wields in the region -- the U.S. has in recent days begun flirting with the region’s leaders, sending a delegation to Mexico City to meet with leftist President López Obrador and moving towards lifting some sanctions against the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes.   

Such moves have left Republican lawmakers and analysts worried about how far the administration is willing to go in order to appease the opposition and hold a successful summit.

Speaking to the Senate subcommittee, Rubio warned that the “post-Cold War hubris about democracy is being directly challenged” in the region by democratically elected leaders who “don’t govern as democrats” and “use the power they acquire electorally to undermine the functioning of institutions.”

“That's been the case in a number of places,” he said. “Nicaragua is one, Venezuela is another. And so you have the real challenge today, not just of a long-term dictatorship that's been in Cuba for a very long time, but what basically are now dictatorships in Venezuela, in Nicaragua, and the fear that that could spread to other places.”

The Florida Senator further charged his fellow senators with ignoring the political situation in the region, sending a message that the U.S. “just doesn’t care.”

In a recent ADN America opinion piece, Rubio warned that “making concessions to authoritarians in our hemisphere only empowers dictators worldwide.”

“The regimes in both Cuba and Venezuela have been staunch defenders of Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. If the White House cozies up to them, we may see more countries in our own region turn a blind eye to Putin’s invasion,” he said.

“At a moment when anti-American influence is expanding internationally and making inroads into Latin America, we should use diplomatic efforts, increase internet access, and expand democracy promotion to prevent such an outcome,” he added.

Ultimately, Rubio urged President Biden to “not let history repeat itself by standing strong against our hemisphere’s brutal dictators.”

“This is not about not inviting Cuba because we want to send a message, or not inviting Nicaragua because we want to send a message, not inviting Maduro because we want to appease some electorate in the United States. It's this: You can't claim to be a summit of democracies if at the table are seated elements that are clearly anti-democratic,” the senator said.