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24 June 2022

The Summit of the Americas Amounted to a Long To-Do List

Steve Liston

The U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas wrapped up in Los Angeles on June 10 with decidedly mixed results. After a run-up to the summit dominated by discussions over who would attend, the event itself was a flurry of activity by hundreds of government, business and civil society participants. Those who care about outcomes were left to sort through five official accords, a slew of side agreements and several U.S. government announcements.

In making sense of the summit’s outcomes, three overarching themes become clear. First, dysfunctional relations between the U.S. and many regional governments continue to hobble U.S. diplomacy in the Americas. Second, Washington’s hemispheric agenda is primarily shaped by its global preoccupations. And finally, in areas where global concerns are less prominent, U.S. domestic politics loom in the background of its regional agenda.

This year’s gathering of regional leaders, the ninth since the inaugural summit in 1994, highlighted the stale and dysfunctional political dynamics that continue to burden relations between the U.S. and regional governments. The first Summit of the Americas, held in Miami, was animated by a post-Cold War sense that unity in the Western Hemisphere could be achieved through democracy and market-led growth. But that optimistic vision was never able to overcome the painful legacy of U.S. intervention in the region, often ignored by U.S. officials, as well as the self-serving opposition by many leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean to a U.S.-led hemisphere-wide project.

This dynamic clearly persists. The U.S. insists it wants a vibrant partnership with democracies in the region and works with countries on thousands of projects at lower levels of government. But senior-level U.S. officials generally put the Americas—a region that enjoyed relative stability and prosperity in the decades following the Cold War and projects minimal economic and political influence on the world stage—at the bottom of their to-do list. The summit in Los Angeles was no different. Even as lower-level officials succeeded in negotiating agreements and joint declarations, senior White House and Cabinet-level leadership failed to engage meaningfully to create the vision and political space for real progress.

At the same time, many regional leaders, including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, chose to use the meeting to distance themselves politically from Washington and score points with domestic constituencies, rather than to build consensus. The fact that AMLO and key Central American leaders stayed home, sending their foreign ministers to the gathering instead, served to highlight how badly the administration mishandled the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the gathering. It also showed that, while a new generation of leaders, such as Chilean President Gabriel Boric, has moved past the region’s historical left-right divide when it comes to relations with the U.S., many are still playing small-ball regional politics, even as global dynamics have made the need for a regional gameplan more pressing.

The summit also highlighted the degree to which Washington’s regional agenda is guided by its preoccupation with these pressing global issues, including climate change, the pandemic, digital technologies, the rise of China as a superpower, the energy and food crises caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the dramatic movement of people across borders for economic and political reasons. The five official declarations from the summit—proposed by the U.S. as host—focused on clean energy, green technologies and policies, health resiliency, digital transformation and democratic governance. In other words, all of them reflect these major global challenges and debates, and all largely echoed commitments that the region’s leaders have made elsewhere.

Unfortunately, these declarations are replete with words like “emphasize,” “promote,” “encourage,” “support,” “affirm” and “request.” But they give no mandates for action to regional institutions or relevant national ministries and agencies, leaving no solid follow-up mechanism for the region on any of these issues.

As for the numerous side agreements, declarations and “deliverables” that accompanied the official summit documents, many key U.S. objectives emerged as White House or State Department fact sheets, a result of last-minute engagement. And where these initiatives don’t mirror Washington’s global concerns, U.S. domestic priorities—including reducing migration, protecting democracy and emphasizing “inclusive” trade—seem to be the primary driver, rather than a regional consensus on priorities.

All these shortcomings notwithstanding, the stated goals of these initiatives would all benefit the region if they end up being meaningfully pursued.

The Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, for instance, which U.S. President Joe Biden announced at the summit, seeks to mobilize investment, make supply chains resilient, broaden participation in the formal economy, advance green economy objectives and ensure sustainable and inclusive trade. These are all essential objectives, but with no clear buy-in from regional governments or follow-on mechanism for action, the future of the partnership remains unclear.

Similarly, the Economy and Health Dialogue of the Americas, unveiled by the State Department in parallel with a corresponding private-public dialogue to be led by the Commerce Department, could offer an effective forum for improving health care systems—but only if senior officials in the United States and other countries follow through on the agenda.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Trade Representative issued a Declaration on Good Regulatory Practices signed by 14 countries, dealing with such matters as transparency in government procurement, public consultations as part of regulatory processes and public access to information. If governments follow through, these practices will help stimulate private sector investment. But again, that’s a big “if.”

Reflecting the Biden administration’s preoccupation with the domestic politics of migration, the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, signed by 20 countries, sets laudable goals to regularize migration and improve treatment of migrants, including commitments to support host communities and foster opportunities for decent work, improve conditions and opportunities in countries of origin, and promote safe, orderly, humane and regular migration. Vice President Kamala Harris also announced initiatives related to addressing the root causes of migration, including a Central America Service Corps aimed at youth and $1.9 billion in new private sector investments under the Partnership for Central America. That the leaders of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were not present at the summit, however, suggests meaningful progress will be a challenge.

Other urgent and pressing issues addressed at the summit included agreements with several Pacific-coast countries aimed at protecting ocean resources and a White House announcement of significant food assistance to address the shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

If the administration can deliver on these and other commitments made in Los Angeles, the summit will have made important contributions to advancing U.S. priorities that will also benefit the region. But the substantive work has been left for later, relying on regional institutions and governments, as well as their nongovernmental collaborators, to give meaning to the declarations made at the summit. And here is the rub. Unlike the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, process, the Summits of the Americas have never been institutionalized with ongoing ministerial meetings culminating in an annual leaders’ summit. Unusually, neither a host nor a date for the next summit was even announced in Los Angeles.

Despite all the initiatives, the U.S. failed to formulate a vision for the Western Hemisphere that could drive the agenda of future summits by empowering private sector-led investment and growth, expanding trade, countering growing Chinese influence and overcoming historical divisions. In that sense, the ninth Summit of the Americas stands as a missed opportunity, feeding a narrative that the mechanism has outlived its usefulness.

As a result, the “success” of this summit and the future of the process overall remain unclear. This is unfortunate, as the Summits of the Americas, including this one, do have utility. They force the most senior levels of the U.S. government, if only briefly, to focus on the region. They provide for in-person connections among the region’s governments and nongovernmental actors, which, as the pandemic made clear, are critical to developing and maintaining these important relations. And they provide an opportunity, if leaders seize it, to reckon with, shape and harness the hemisphere’s myriad bonds in the service of common objectives. That will be increasingly urgent as the region navigates a rapidly shifting political and economic landscape that will further disrupt the prospects for stability and prosperity.

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