Brandon And Blinken Have Lost All Semblence Of Hegemony Among The Americas

sputnik  |  "Mexican President López Obrador has increased the risk of embarrassing Biden, who will be the host of the meeting in Los Angeles, as he has already announced that his country will not participate in the summit with the absence of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua," says Gustavo Guerreiro, executive editor of the journal World Tensions and a member of the Brazilian Centre for Solidarity with Peoples and Struggle for Peace (CEBRAPAZ). "The likely boycott of the summit denotes the collapse of US hegemony over Latin America."

The ninth Summit of the Americas (SOA) is due to take place on 6-10 June 2022 in Los Angeles, California. It will be convened in the US for the first time since its 1994 inaugural session in Miami. However, after it became clear that leftist states Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua would not be included, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador signaled that he would skip the summit. Bolivian President Luis Arce followed in Obrador's footsteps, saying that he may also boycott the event if the heads of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited.

 

Honduran President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya stated on Twitter that "if not all nations are present, it's not a Summit of the Americas." For his part, Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez said that he would participate in the meeting but cited deep concerns about excluding nations.

 

Meanwhile, Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei said last Tuesday that he would not attend after Washington barred Maria Consuelo Porras, the country's top prosecutor, and her family.

 

"Giammattei said he would not participate in the Americas summit after the US criticized the appointment of Guatemala Attorney General, Consuelo Porras, for another four years," says Guerreiro. "This is yet another case of the US interference in the internal affairs of another country. President Giammattei said that although his country is small, his sovereignty must be respected."

 

US Lost Control in Latin America

Meanwhile, the US is scrambling to avoid a boycott. On 19 May, US special adviser, former Senator Chris Dodd, tried to persuade the Mexican president to visit the SOA summit. The same day, the Biden administration pointed the finger of blame at Cuba for "fuelling controversy over its possible exclusion" from the summit to portray the US as a "bad guy."

 

"It is not justified at all," Guerreiro highlights. "On the contrary, Washington insists on maintaining a criminal embargo, which imposes seemingly endless draconian economic and political sanctions, which mainly penalise the population of Cuba. Cuba has every right to manifest against any form of isolation that hegemonic power imposes on him."

 

On 23 May, the US signaled that it was looking for ways to represent the people of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in the upcoming SOA: "We are still evaluating options on how to best incorporate the voices of the Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan people into the summit process," a US state department official said.

 

However, Guerreiro forecasts that these attempts are likely to be opposed by a bipartisan coalition of American politicians: "One of those in the campaign against Cuba's participation is Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Cuban-American Democrat who heads the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee," he says.

 

The scholar notes that the controversy surrounding the summit shows deep changes in Washington's traditional perception of Latin America as its backyard. "The US no longer governs the region," he says.

 

At the same time, the US is at pains to maintain the crumbling status quo and has difficulties in establishing working relations with left-wing democratic governments of Latin America, according to the scholar.

 

"The US remains a great world power and will probably continue to be," Guerreiro says. "However, they can no longer command Latin America as before. Of course, there are differences between some leaders, this is natural. However, the US command is no longer accepted and there is awareness that Latin American countries are capable of forming a bloc of common interests."