The US and Latin America: Ongoing Issues

The recent Summit of the Americas passed without pain or glory. President Joe Biden’s effort to reestablish relations between the United States and Latin America was fruitless, as relations were greatly damaged by Donald Trump’s presidency. Big issues went unmentioned and the summit reached merely vague, superficial agreements lacking any definitive way to implement them and leaving behind as a souvenir only controversy over the exclusion of certain countries. It was a lost opportunity.

The Los Angeles, California, summit excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela because they are considered to be undemocratic regimes that violate human rights. Some governments like Mexico continued to protest this move and managed in large part to boycott the meeting by centering discussion on the invitation list and not on urgent issues that needed to be addressed.

As a result, the summit produced weak and generic declarations about good intentions to regulate immigration, but there was no concrete action. Economic, health, security and environmental issues were overshadowed by other matters or decidedly excluded. Even the agreements that were reached on migration were weakened by the absent countries and turbulent diplomatic climate that downplayed the summit.

Biden promised to build bridges with Latin America and to strengthen alliances. The summit failed to achieve this objective. Biden has spoken much about the need for a continental alliance to face emerging markets and trading blocs such as the European Union. However, this American dream is still unfulfilled. Maybe there is too much inequality for there to be a commercial union. Moreover, the continent extends so far geographically that it is easier to trade with Asian countries, for example, than with American countries from the Southern Hemisphere. An alliance like the one Biden envisions seems more a dream than a reality.

Latin America has always been an ongoing issue for the United States. It has been an unresolved mystery; an unconnected and nearby territory; problematic and necessary. Intercontinental relations have been tense for many years, with assertions but no facts to support them. Latin America looks to the north with mistrust and knows that people must have a deep interest in the language being used. Latin America views the search for development and stability as one that is more driven by hidden racism that wants to close the doors to migration than by a genuine desire to offer a hand. There are many open wounds that impede a true dialogue between sister cities.

We will have to find paths to a common existence despite current divides. Today’s problems require that we leave the past behind.