Joe Biden pronounced the word democracy ten times during his welcome speech to the leaders and government representatives who decided to attend the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Eight of the 35 heads of state of the countries integrated into the Organization of American States (OAS) were missing, three of them because Washington did not invite them (Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua) and most of the rest because, in response to those vetoes, They decided not to go. Such absences were noted yesterday in the plenary of the meeting, where Biden called for consensus and progress based on democratic principles while other dignitaries insisted on his discrepancy.
The US leader considered democracy “a hallmark of our region.” An affirmation that the exclusions that mark the summit contradicted. However, Biden added that democracy “is not only the feature that defines the history of the Americas, but the essential ingredient of its future”, although he recognized that the region is “large and diverse” and “we do not always agree throughout”.
The leader argued that now the governments of North and South America have “the opportunity to unite around some bold ideas and ambitious actions.” Among them, he highlighted a joint approach to the climate crisis that generates “high-quality, well-paid jobs that will help accelerate our transition to the green economy of the future.”
Four development banks will provide up to $50 billion in financing over the next five years to support climate goals in the Americas and islands, Washington officials said.
But the environmental challenges of the region are enormous. Starting with the deforestation of the Amazon. In his presidential campaign, Biden promised to lead an international coalition that would gather 20,000 million dollars so that Brazil could stop that destruction. The populist and ultra-conservative president Jair Bolsonaro took it as a contempt, but later his environment ministers demanded the money. The two leaders planned to meet last night in Los Angeles in a tense entrance meeting: hours before traveling to the summit, Bolsonaro had questioned Biden’s electoral victory over Trump, for whom he once again expressed his sympathy.
The climate is one of the two key topics of the American meeting; the other is immigration. And, in this other matter, the president of the United States had a bad time to forge great agreements taking into account the non-appearance of a large part of the leaders of the countries concerned: Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala…
The Mexican leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the main absentee among those invited to the summit, did not hesitate to remind Biden that his government is represented in Los Angeles, by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, “but under protest because we do not accept that it be excluded to nobody”.
American unity today seems like a chimera.
