AMLO Will Not Attend Summit of the Americas, Counter-Hegemonic Events on the Rise

Caracas, June 6, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)—The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), confirmed this Monday, June 6, that he will not attend the 9th Summit of the Americas because several countries of the hemisphere were excluded.

AMLO stated during his usual morning press conference that he is “not going to the summit because not all the countries of America are invited. I believe in the need to change the policy that has been imposed for centuries: exclusion, wanting to dominate for no reason, not respecting the sovereignty of countries. There can be no Summit of the Americas if all countries of the American continent do not participate.”

Meanwhile, two important grassroots summits are happening in parallel to counter the exhausted imperialist approach of the US. The People’s Summit is being held from June 8 to 10 in Los Angeles, California; and the Worker’s Summit of the Americas from June 10-12 in Tijuana, Mexico, a few miles south of the US border. Many activists point to the two counter-hegemonic events as a demonstration of the power of anti-imperialist movements and peoples both north and south of the border.

Mexico's President AMLO said he refuses to attend the US government's Summit of the Americas, protesting the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua
AMLO condemned US "hegemony" and its "old policy of interventionism," of "lack of respect"
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— Geopolitical Economy Report (@GeopoliticaEcon) June 6, 2022

Prior to the summit, US President Joe Biden vetoed the attendance of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which has generated negative reactions. So far, several Latin American presidents have joined the repudiation of the exclusion of these three countries for political reasons.

Like Mexico, the nations of Bolivia, Guatemala, and Honduras maintain that their heads of state will not participate in the summit that is to start this Monday, June 6.

The Summit of the Americas, which until recently represented a high-level political meeting in the Western Hemisphere, has now become a failed event after losing prestige due to the decision of the United States to exclude several countries and the lack of leadership of the United States on the world stage.

Since the announcement of the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, López Obrador make clear that he would not attend the summit, and would instead send his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard. Immediately, US diplomats started exerting pressure on the Mexican government to push AMLO to participate.

Washington sent Christopher Dodd, special advisor for the Summit of the Americas and main organizer, to Mexico City. Dodd, alongside US Ambassador Ken Salazar, met with Mexican authorities on May 18. After the meeting, Washington tried to play down the exclusion of the three socialist countries, but evidently it was not enough to avert the fiasco for US diplomacy.

However, the Mexican president added during his press conference that his US counterpart, Joe Biden, is a “good person” and considered Biden’s decision not to invite certain countries as the result of “a lot of pressure from the Republicans as well as some Democrats” exerted against him, “which has to do with the Cuban community in Florida.”

Some US Department of State (DoS) inside jokes have leaked to the press, and one of them says that President Biden himself threatened the organizer committee in the DoS that he would not attend the summit if they did not untangle the mess they created in its organization.

Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff

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