The Dominican Republic, scheduled to host the annual Summit of the Americas on Dec. 4-5, announced on Monday that the summit has been postponed until some yet-to-be-determined date in 2026, “due to deep differences of opinion which currently hinder a productive dialogue in the Americas.” Unsaid, but understood, is that there is no way a regional summit would not turn into a public brawl over President Donald Trump’s assertion of a right to deploy military force as the United States pleases, against whom it pleases in the region—especially if the U.S. proceeds to launch military strikes on Venezuela, whether by airstrikes, special forces, or a full-scale invasion.
The summit has been held every year since the United States initiated it in December 1994, in an attempt to re-establish its even-then-shaky commanding hold over its southern neighbors. The summit’s importance has increasingly shrunk, as the countries of Ibero-America and the Caribbean have moved away from U.S.-dominated institutions, such as the Organization of American States, and created their own regional grouping, the CELAC.
Now it cannot even be held. The Trump administration, with its Marco Rubios, has dropped any pretense of interest in the concerns and desires of its neighbors. Its policy is that nations must choose: “You are with the U.S. against Russia and China, or you, too, are an adversary;” anyone who raises sovereignty and proposes respectful dialogue is “out.” These wannabe Teddy Roosevelts delude themselves, if they believe that the historic impulse of these nations towards great-project-centered economic integration through which to overcome poverty and underdevelopment—the `Operation Juarez’ approach championed by the U.S.’s fiercest anti-imperialist of the 20th century, Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.—can be buried by sheer force.
