López Obrador says he will not attend this week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles because Biden is not inviting Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Monday that he will not attend this week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, after President Biden declined to extend invitations to three authoritarian countries in the Western Hemisphere — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The snub by America’s southern neighbor, two days before Biden lands in California, is a blow to the Biden’s effort to assert regional leadership and address issues ranging from climate change to immigration. While the announcement was not a complete surprise, the White House had been hoping López Obrador, one of the region’s most prominent leaders, would attend the gathering. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said officials have been speaking to López Obrador and other Latin American leaders for more than a month and the administration was not caught off guard by the announcement. But she said Biden nonetheless felt compelled to take a “principled stand” on the human rights abuses of the three countries. López Obrador’s move reflects the challenges of Biden’s oft-stated view that the world is facing a broad confrontation between democracies and dictatorships. Summit faces boycott over invite list
In an effort to offset the announcement, Jean-Pierre said López Obrador would visit Washington in July to meet with Biden directly. She also praised Mexico’s contributions to this week’s summit — which focuses on issues such as democracy, clean energy, politics, migration and recovery from the coronavirus pandemic — and noted that the country’s foreign minister would attend.
“It is important to acknowledge that there are a range of views on this question in our hemisphere, as there are in the United States,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president’s principled position is that we do not believe that dictators should be invited, which is the reason that the (Mexican) president has decided not to attend.”
During the summit, which officially started Monday, leaders and others from North, Central and South America, and the Caribbean plan to explore economic and general goals for the Western Hemisphere. But the meeting is also a test of U.S. influence in the region, particularly as Biden’s foreign policy has been largely focused on Europe and Asia.
