That was the question raised by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei standing at his side in their press conference after meeting privately on May 5. Guatemala was the first stop on López Obrador’s ongoing trip to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize and Cuba.
“It seems inexplicable to me that in Washington … approval for the $4 billion which they offered to invest in generating well-being in the Central American countries has been so delayed.… [T]hey have already approved more than $30 billion to support the war in Ukraine…. It’s been four years since President Donald Trump was in, proposing that support be given with $4 billion, and as of today: nothing, absolutely nothing,” López Obrador told journalists.
While he put the onus for that discrepancy on Congress, rather than on President Biden, López Obrador had delivered a related criticism of Washington’s priorities directly to Biden when they spoke by phone on April 29. AMLO reported in the morning press conference the following Monday, May 2 that he had explicitly requested that the United States invite Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua to the June Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. State Department officials have made it clear around the continent that, as the host, they have no intention of inviting those “autocratic” countries.
“How is it that we convoke a Summit of the Americas but don’t invite everyone? So, where are the ones we are not inviting from? From what continent, what galaxy, what satellite?” AMLO reported he had demanded of Biden. The White House, so far, replies that they are “studying” the matter.
There is a movement afoot in the region for countries not to attend the Summit, if those countries are excluded. The Foreign Ministers of Venezuela and Bolivia met Thursday, May 5, in La Paz, and issued a similar appeal. Bolivian Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta told the press afterwards: “These types of exclusions affect multilateralism. We have constructed settings such as the United Nations, where the most contradictory voices could be expressed in the midst of the Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.; in that setting, discussions were held and solutions sought. It is in settings such as that, where situations critical for the world, such as a Third World War, have been avoided. Therefore, if there is going to be a Summit of the Americas, and we are going to talk about migration, climate change resilience, matters which are important for the whole continent, all the countries must be present.”
State Department officials have also made clear that the U.S. is pushing for a regional statement condemning Russia to come out of the summit, which most governments in the region would like to avoid. Cancelling the summit on “inclusion” grounds would take care of that problem!
