Source: Politics<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Summit of the Americas was more Summit of some of the Americas.<\/p>\n
Biden administration officials grumbled about their Western Hemisphere truants. They monitored the Jan. 6 hearings on Capitol Hill and marveled at how little the national media tuned into events unfolding around the current president. They joked that expectations heading into the summit were so low that they probably would have to botch the proceedings to command much attention.<\/p>\n
Not that they did much to raise expectations around the snakebitten confab in the first place.<\/p>\n
But as President Joe Biden prepared to decamp to New Mexico on Saturday, the worst of their fears were averted, it was clear the president salvaged something \u2014 however modest \u2014 out of his tough circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people thought it would be a \u2018debacle,\u2019\u201d said Gerardo Munck, an expert on the region from the University of Southern California who participated in a summit-related discussion Friday. \u201cThe absences of Mexico and three Central American countries was certainly a loss for the administration. But I see things looking better for Biden and Co. now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the absence of the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, along with Mexico and several other nations, Munck said Biden still advanced the discussion on a set of specific U.S. proposals focused on the hemisphere: In the Los Angeles Declaration, a nonbinding migration blueprint unveiled by the summit leaders Friday, the group established legal pathways to enter the countries and set new parameters around aid.<\/p>\n
The Biden administration has committed to a three-fold increase in resettling 20,000 refugees from the Americas over the next year. Other pacts revolved around addressing climate change and driving clean energy, advancing food security, mobilizing new investments in the region and incentivizing increased trade, though they lacked major funding and many specifics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no reason why the Western Hemisphere can\u2019t be the most forward-looking, most democratic, most prosperous, most peaceful, secure region in the world,\u201d Biden said at one of the plenary sessions. \u201cWe have unlimited potential. We have enormous resources and a democratic spirit that stands for freedom and opportunity for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remarks were few made at the summit by Biden, who decided to skip the traditional closing press conference Friday. First lady Jill Biden seemed to channel her husband\u2019s pique at the media after the summit ended, telling a Democratic fundraiser she had issues with an \u201cunfair\u201d piece in The New York Times citing the migration pact being met with skepticism. She said that gave her a \u201cpretend shriek.\u201d<\/p>\n
“At the dinner last night, every leader came up to Joe and said, ‘What a difference you’ve made. It’s so great that you’re here. It’s so great that we’re working together,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that’s what all the spouses said to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president backed her up: \u201cThe press will probably not say it,\u201d he added, \u201cbut I wish they’d go back and interview all the heads of state and the Latin American Conference we just had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tension shadowed the summit from the start. The U.S. opted against inviting the autocratic nations of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela because of political optics and the countries\u2019 human rights records. That inflamed other nations in the region, prompting Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador to skip the summit and send his foreign minister instead.<\/p>\n
Other nations also boycotted while some that did come, including the leaders of Belize and Argentina, used their moments in the spotlight to upbraid Biden for excluding their neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe silence of those who are absent is calling to us,\u201d said Argentina\u2019s Alberto Fern\u00e1ndez, who insisted the host country did not have the power to impose \u201cright of admission\u201d to the conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely would’ve wished for a different Summit of the Americas,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n
Biden, in one of the sessions, acknowledged the discord over attendance, but sought to refocus the conversation. \u201cNotwithstanding some of the disagreements relating to participation, on the substantive matters what I heard was almost unity \u2014 uniformity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yet Latin America has not been a priority for the Biden administration. Even the White House\u2019s lead liaison to the region \u2013 Vice President Kamala Harris, tasked with stemming migration to the U.S. from the Northern Triangle nations \u2013 has visited the region only twice since January 2021. Biden himself has not yet set foot in Latin America as president.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of its proximity, the region has outsized importance to us. Despite that, we don\u2019t pay much attention to it, which has been true for many administrations,\u201d said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cThe summit created frameworks, that\u2019s good. But the jury is out as to whether they lead to anything. The U.S. is going to need to follow up, is going to need to pay sustained attention and is going to need to devote real resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the drama over the guest list, some of the proposals unveiled and new policies previewed by the Biden administration lacked detail, adding to a sense that the summit wasn\u2019t the fulsome diplomatic affair as originally expected. Sparsely attended rooms in summit sessions and a general lack of excitement inside and outside the venues were recurring topics of conversation on the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Even Biden\u2019s first encounter with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro \u2014 referred to as \u201cTrump of the Tropics\u201d \u2014 lacked spectacle, especially since Bolsonaro had recently mocked Biden\u2019s age (at 67, he\u2019s about 12 years younger than the U.S. president) and complained that he had been personally snubbed at the G20 summit last year (\u201che passed by as if I didn’t exist!\u201d Bolsonaro complained).<\/p>\n
The summit arrived at a busy and challenging time for the West Wing.<\/p>\n
The war in Ukraine remained front and center of its foreign policy team, with administration officials already preparing for a pair of European summits at month\u2019s end \u2014 the G7 in Germany, NATO in Spain \u2014 that could play a central role in charting the course of the West\u2019s ongoing resistance to Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n
At home, too, the summit was overshadowed by the gripping kickoff to the Jan. 6 House committee hearings as well as the ongoing gun safety debate that has roiled the nation since the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. And perhaps most immediately, the dominant headline Biden woke up to Friday in Los Angeles on inflation reaching a 40-year-high \u2014 likely remaining the defining issue for this November\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n