A Fish Rots From The Head - Ours Stinks To High Heaven

responsiblestatecraft |   Biden’s problem is that the United States no longer enjoys the political or economic dominance that enabled it to dictate the terms of hemispheric relations, and Latin Americans are no longer willing to simply accept Washington’s priorities as their own. Rebuilding U.S. leadership in the Hemisphere will require that Washington confer with its neighbors and genuinely listen to them rather than dictating to them. Occasionally, it will require Washington to take the unfamiliar and uncomfortable step of deferring to them.

The Ninth Summit of the Americas, hosted by President Biden last week in Los Angeles, was in trouble even before it convened. Planning for it was erratic, with no clear theme or agenda in place until the last minute. Invitations went out just a few weeks before the event, delayed because of a very public controversy over whether Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would be included. In the end, they were not.

Senior U.S. officials hinted early on that the Summit would be restricted to “democratically elected leaders.” That prompted pushback from a number of Latin Americans, foremost among them Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Although the host nation sends out the Summit invitations, some Latin Americans regarded the decision to exclude the three governments as an abuse of the host’s prerogatives.

To mollify López Obrador and others who voiced similar concerns, the White House toyed with the idea of inviting Cuba to send a lower level official, or participate as an observer. Not surprisingly, Cuba rejected this second-class citizenship even before it was offered. López-Obrador politely declined to attend the Summit, sending his foreign minister instead. The presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador declined as well. At the Summit, other heads of state openly criticized Washington for not inviting all the nations of the Americas.

Irregular migration was a main focus of the Summit, but between them, the countries excluded and those whose presidents stayed home accounted for 69 percent of the migrants encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April — nearly 180,000 people. Trying to formulate a strategy to stem irregular migration without engaging the governments of the migrants’ home countries is a recipe for failure.