Under the motto “Building a sustainable, resilient and equitable future”, the Summit of the Americas will take place until June 10, in Los Angeles. US President Joe Biden invited the heads of state and government of North, South and Central America and the Caribbean. For the US, this is a possible redefinition of its relationship with Latin American countries. They confidently demand real equality, on an equal footing, and thus get Washington in trouble.
the Biden line
Joe Biden, who once served as the special envoy for relations with the region when he was vice president of Barack Obama, through his numerous visits to Latin America, has worked since taking office to normalize relations with the countries. Latin Americans, neglected by President Trump.
The Los Angeles summit represents another opportunity for the United States to strengthen its presence in the region and forge an alliance to jointly fight irregular migration. In this regard, Vice President Kamala Harris was instructed to focus primarily on combating the causes of unregulated migration as a central theme of US policy in Latin America.
The Trump administration’s America First policy in Latin America was already focused on reducing flows of irregular migrants from Mexico and Central America and curbing drug imports. As a means of achieving their goals, countries were often threatened with economically tangible consequences if they did not cooperate along the American hard line. Financial aid to countries was massively reduced and agreements with third countries were forced and the consequent transfers of migrants from the United States to their countries of origin were forced.
A policy of maximum sanctions was aimed at regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, and an application of the Monroe Doctrine tailored to the circumstances was used as the basis for an unambiguous policy towards new rival China. This would also have repercussions on Latin American states in their relationship with the Middle Kingdom.
Aside from these strategic and interest-driven moments of political influence, Trump cared very little about Latin American affairs. The United States’ Latin American policy followed the principle of benign neglect, which was made clear to Trump’s Latin American counterparts, for example, by his absence from the last Summit of the Americas.
A strategy covering the whole of Latin America was not envisaged. Instead, there were sporadic interventions in countries and regions of particular importance from a US domestic affairs perspective.
New approaches
President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is willing to take a different approach to addressing the persistent challenges facing US policy in Latin America, to restore its credibility and its longstanding claim to leadership in the region.
The central points of its political agenda are irregular migration and transnational drug trafficking, the relationship with the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and the growing institutional instability of Central American countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Added to this is climate change, which is becoming increasingly egregious in the region, and what is increasingly perceived as a threat: China’s influence over once-trusted democratic partners in the Western Hemisphere.
With the Democracy Summit and Climate Summit organized last year, Biden sent two signals early in his term: he wanted to work together with like-minded people in the region against authoritarian forces, and he wanted to tackle the causes of climate change. and its various effects.
In this sense, the Summit of the Americas that the US is now organizing in Los Angeles is not just an opportunity to repair relations with Latin American countries that were damaged by the Trump era. Looking ahead to the upcoming midterms, the important midterm elections of the government period, Biden will also be concerned with convincing participating states of a significant regional agreement to combat irregular migration and associated security policy challenges.
threats
However, the plan now threatens to backfire and turn the Summit into a disaster for the Americans, after the presidents of Mexico and Bolivia and some Caribbean countries cast doubt on their participation if Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba were not invited. These dictatorships were also not invited to the last Summit for Democracy organized by the US government.
Such a boycotted summit would fuel ideological conflicts on the continent and make it difficult to reach a much-needed sustainable migration agreement and, as far as Brazil is concerned, advance a regionally coordinated Amazon policy. Furthermore, it would undermine the US initiative to strengthen cooperation with Latin American states and thus also roll back the growing Chinese and, in part, Russian influence.
Panorama
A good year and a half after taking office, Biden’s pledge to work for democracy, human rights and the rule of law with the support of international and regional cooperation and alliance-building can be evaluated in two ways. On the one hand, the Biden and Harris administrations managed to give a new tone of association with many Latin American countries, gradually breaking down the walls built by Trump and promoting a new strategy of cooperation between partners. However, the government has largely fallen short of its electoral promises.
The implementation of the Latin American strategy thus far cannot be described in any way as a clear change from the Trump era and its harsh practices. It is not particularly innovative, nor has it made any essential progress in the fight against organized crime, irregular migration or climate change.
International actors, notably China, will watch closely whether the United States can send the signal Biden aspires to regional cooperation on important common challenges such as migration, climate change and (energy) security, or whether the Summit will further alienate Latin American countries from the United States and will therefore provide an opportunity to challenge the United States in its own backyard.
