The Summit of the Americas Is an Instrument of US Hegemony in Latin America
The US has attempted to exclude several countries from next month’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. The move has only backfired, prompting a boycott of the summit and renewed calls for an alternative union of Latin American and Caribbean countries.
US president Joe Biden delivers the commencement address during the graduation and commissioning ceremony at the US Naval Academy Memorial Stadium on May 27, 2022, in Annapolis, Maryland. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Earlier this month, the assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, Brian Nichols, gave an interview to the Colombian station NTN24. When asked whether the United States, host of this year’s Summit of the Americas in June, will be inviting Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to the event, Nichols replied:
It’s a key moment in our hemisphere, a moment in which we are confronting many challenges to democracy . . . and the countries you just mentioned . . . do not respect the Inter-American Democratic Charter and therefore, I do not expect them to be present.
Nichols was not the first member of the Joe Biden administration to say this; in March, Juan Gonzalez, a special assistant to the president and member of the National Security Council, had already floated the idea. But coming closer to the date and directly on a Latin American news program, Nichols’s remarks sank like a lead balloon across large parts of the continent.
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.