In February 2022, China and Russia released a joint declaration in which they projected a shared worldview. At that point, they argue, the world would no longer be unipolar, that is, the United States would no longer concentrate most of the world’s power. The world would be polycentric, and Russia and China would be some of those centers.
In March 2021, the Biden administration, in its Interim National Security Strategy, had already highlighted two trends: China would be the only country capable of gathering economic, diplomatic, military and technological power that could threaten the hegemony of the United States, while Russia appears as a country capable of destabilizing Washington’s influence around the world. In this context, the Ninth Summit of the Americas takes place in Los Angeles, USA.
The Summit of the Americas is a meeting of heads of state and government of the Americas that has been held approximately every three years since 1994 to discuss shared challenges, affirm shared values, and commit to joint action at the national and regional levels. with a view to solving new and persistent challenges. Since its launch, the absence of leaders and the approach to controversial topics have usually characterized the Summits.
In 2018, for example, Donald Trump did not attend the Summit in Lima. Nor are Summits rare in which declarations are not adopted by consensus, and controversial topics are often left out of meetings. There are also frequent controversies regarding the threat of boycotting the Summit due to the exclusion of countries such as Cuba. The difference this year is that the United States has gone back from the position it had taken in 2015, when Cuba was invited to participate in the Summits of the Americas.
The host country draws up the guest list and, in 2022, the United States left out Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In a scenario in which China is the main trading partner of South American countries, these three countries form a troika that introduces Russia’s influence on the fringes of US power. If, historically, the United States sees the Americas as a territory for (North-)Americans, the geopolitics of the 21st century offers new challenges in the region that, however, run the risk of gaining old solutions in the face of the lenses used by US decision-makers. .
In the 20th century, Washington instrumentalized governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to support pro-US regimes, even if they had no commitment to democracy and human rights. Then, as now, the US discourse was that the West represented the democratic and capitalist side of a war in which it opposed authoritarianism and socialism. However, Latin American countries, as long as they were geopolitically aligned with the United States, had their practices of disrespect for democracy and human rights accepted by Washington, with the exception, to a certain extent, of the Carter administration.
The exclusion of troika of the Summit of the Americas reveals similar selectivity insofar as countries like El Salvador have questionable democracy and systematically disrespect human rights, yet they were invited. According to the Freedom House index of freedom, the main Western think tank that earns such indices around the world, in Latin America, not only Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba would be the countries that are not free, but also Haiti, invited by the United States to the Summit.
In addition, between 2020 and 2021, there was a downward trend in democracy indices in the region, including countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico. In this sense, hosting the Summit and signing declarations that celebrate democratic values shared by the countries of the Americas can mean legitimizing governments that, although geopolitically close to the United States, are far from champions of democracy and human rights.
Acting in this way generates medium-term costs for the United States itself, which is eventually seen by Latin Americans as enemies of the popular will, sponsors of power projects that are alien to the desires of the people. Given, for example, China’s commercial primacy in South America and the Silk Road initiatives, it seems counterproductive for the United States to return to adopting a strategy of instrumentalizing regimes favorable to Washington, legitimizing governments that tend to be authoritarian and massive disrespect for human rights only because, in the short term, they appear to contain the influence of China and Russia
The Biden administration’s selectivity on the occasion of the Summit of the Americas, therefore, is a trap for the United States itself. It has negative consequences for Washington’s interests in its immediate zone of influence. This situation becomes even more sensitive since the foreign policy tradition of South American countries, for example, is based on the notion of autonomy, that is, on the notion that one should not automatically align with any of the poles of world power. In these countries, the search for development involves diversifying partnerships, establishing good relations with all poles of power in order to generate means to strengthen the economy and promote social justice in the region.
Given the Biden administration’s interpretation, which seems similar to that of the Cold War, the resumption of autonomous foreign policies by the countries of the Americas could generate the perception in Washington that the countries of the region would be flirting with alignments with China and Russia, a mistaken notion that it can generate American support for regime change processes and authoritarian regimes.
This attitude would therefore compromise the perception that the United States would be partners with Latin America and the Caribbean for the strengthening of democratic institutions, respect for human rights and the environment, central guidelines for the 2022 Summit of the Americas.
