President Joe Biden made a forceful pitch to reassert US influence in
Latin America through a weeklong summit in Los Angeles but the modesty of his
promises will test his efforts at a time when China is making rapid inroads.
اضافة اعلان
Some two dozen leaders came together for the Summit
of the Americas where Biden and the rest of the top US brass pledged to do more
with them on migration, clean energy, and health infrastructure — and charmed
guests with glitzy receptions befitting Tinseltown.
Biden said that the Americas should be the “most
forward-looking, most democratic, most prosperous, most peaceful, secure region
in the world.”
“No matter what else is happening in the world, the
Americas will always be a priority for the US of America,” Biden said.
But Biden also faced a boycott by Mexican President
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and open criticism from several leaders including
over the decades-old pressure campaign on Cuba and on whether he would follow
through on promises.
The US next year marks two centuries since it
declared Latin America its exclusive sphere under the Monroe Doctrine and
cultural ties run deep.
But China — identified by Washington as its top
global competitor — has quickly become the second-largest commercial partner in
Latin America and the biggest for South America, which has shipped commodities
including soybeans and oil to the billion-plus market across the Pacific.
The fast-growing communist power has lent some $150
billion to Latin America since 2005, about half to Venezuela, offering no
political conditions but putting some nations into what critics call a debt
trap.
Modest scope
Biden at the summit pitched
a hemisphere-wide economic “partnership” that will discuss common standards but
not directly commit funding or new market access.
The political mood in the US has soured over free
trade and — despite Biden extolling the democratic model — bitter polarization
makes few ambitious initiatives realistic in Congress.
“It was a mistake to convene a summit with little to
offer,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow at Chatham House.
“This idea that the hemisphere, because of its
proximity, shares the same principles and goals is over,” he said. “The US
doesn’t have the capacity to offer many advantages.”
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor,
insisted that lavishing state funds was never the US playbook. And the US
already has free-trade deals with a number of Latin American nations including
Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.
In one effort to challenge China’s model, Secretary
of State Antony Blinken said the administration would push “fundamental
reforms” in the Inter-American Development Bank, to which Washington is the
largest donor, so it can assist middle-income nations not poor enough for
concessionary loans.
Ryan Berg, a senior fellow at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, said that US influence has been sinking in
Latin America for the past decade.
The reason is “mostly self-inflicted — a lack of
attention to the region, taking the region for granted as a source of stability
and prosperity, and an inability to marshal the resources and creativity
necessary for a comprehensive, meaningful alternative to China’s development financing.”
If Cuba has long been a thorn in the US relationship
with Latin America, it would have been unthinkable until recently for the
president of Mexico not to attend a US-led summit.
Lopez Obrador boycotted over Biden’s refusal to
invite the leftist leaders of Cuba as well as Venezuela and Nicaragua on the
grounds that they are authoritarians.
Show of commitment
While insisting the summit
is only for democracies, Biden reached out to leaders across the political
spectrum, building ties with the left-leaning presidents of Argentina and Chile
but meeting for the first time with Brazil’s controversial far-right president,
Jair Bolsonaro.
Jason Marczak, who heads the Latin America center at
the Atlantic Council, said that attendance was more robust than at the last
Summit of the Americas in 2018 in Peru, which then US president Donald Trump
did not attend.
“Pre-summit drama is one of the few consistencies”
in the Summits of the Americas, he said.
He credited Biden with addressing Latin America’s
interests but said, “Many of the announcements require additional action and
it’s going to be super important that action is a priority.”
Senator Tim Kaine, a member of Biden’s Democratic
Party with long experience in Latin America, said the administration showed its
commitment through the summit. Complaints about particular US policies, he
said, are routine at regional gatherings.
“But I’ll tell you what stays — when people say you’re not
present,” Kaine said.
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