The intervention formally opened a day and a half of deliberations for the leaders to expose their vision face to face until today and seek consensus on issues of the economy, climate, immigration and democracy. “We will have an opportunity to find ways to be more useful to our peoples, working together, he emphasized, ‘working together’; that is what our people expect of us,” Biden said.
The appointment arrives surrounded by controversy due to absences and signs of divisions that seem to reduce the chances of a lasting reconnection between Latin America and a United States that has given priority to strategic alliances with countries in Europe and Asia.
Biden needs to regain ground in the region to tackle China’s increased presence and show that he is dealing with high-impact continental issues in the United States, such as immigration, before the legislative elections in his country, in November.
But the boycotts of the summit, added to the stagnation in Congress of initiatives to invest in Latin America, have complicated the plans of Washington, which now focuses its efforts on obtaining corporate support for its purposes.
Hours before opening the plenary sessions, Biden urged the CEOs and executives of some of the largest companies in the Americas to accompany an effort at a time when the world and the continent feel the economic impact of the war in Ukraine.
“My challenge to all of you is that if you step up and play a bigger role in promoting equitable, inclusive and sustainable growth in the 21st century, a lot is going to happen,” Biden told the CEOs. “None of us will be able to fully realize our ambitions for the region alone,” he added.
Later, in his speech at the summit, Biden listed a series of his administration’s initiatives toward the Americas announced this week, almost all of them consisting of investment commitments in the region by large US companies.
Among them, there is a new “alliance” with Latin America to mobilize investment and improve institutions focused above all on three Central American countries that are the place of origin of thousands of illegal immigrants who arrive in the United States.
Proposals
One of the proposals promotes a reform of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and 1.9 billion dollars from the private sector to promote employment and contain migration from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The United States will also fund a new Pan American Health Corps to improve the training of 500,000 health workers. In addition, today the so-called Los Angeles Declaration on Migration will be approved, a plan to contain the flood of Central American migrants trying to enter the United States after crossing Mexico from south to north in large caravans.
Biden reiterated, in opening the plenary sessions, an open defense of democracy that he made last night by opening the summit with a ceremony and another speech. The issue gained relevance after the United States excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela from the summit, considering that their governments are “dictatorships.” This caused rejection in some American rulers, led by the president of Mexico, Andrés López Obrador, who gave up going to the meeting as a sign of protest.
Biden’s busy day included meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and another much-anticipated meeting with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
The United States will also “provide support” to Brazil, Colombia and Peru through the so-called “Amazonia Connect,” which was launched at the UK climate summit in Glasgow, a US official told reporters. In addition, he expects the inclusion of five more members (Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana, Brazil and Argentina) in the Renewable Energies for Latin America and the Caribbean (RELAC) initiative, made up of 15 other nations, he added.
Source: Ambito
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