Mexico threatened not to go to the Summit of the Americas if the US does not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), threatened that he will not go to the Summit of the Americas if the United States finally does not invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Yesterday afternoon he had explicitly said that he would ask Biden if they could participate.

In the classic press conference every morning, the Mexican president directly launched: “If it is excluded, if not everyone is invited, a representation of the Mexican government will go, but I would not go.” Yesterday, during a meeting with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, he asked to “achieve unity” at the summit organized in Los Angeles between June 6 and 10.

Mexico’s request is added to the one made by Argentina last week through CELAC, the community of Latin American states that the country chairs until the end of the year. From the social networks, they had asked that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua not be excluded from the Summit, as a front-line Biden official assured.

The position of the United States

It was Brian Nichols, Undersecretary of State for Latin America and the Caribbean, who confirmed that these three countries will not be invited: “I do not expect their presence,” he explained during an interview with the Colombian channel NTN24.

According to the official, the highest-ranking official for the region within the State Department, this decision by the United States responds to the fact that none of the three “respect the democratic charter of the Americas.” In dialogue had already anticipated that “democracy is a fundamental priority” for the Biden administration.

Hours before Nichols’ statement, the US president had communicated by telephone with AMLO. According to him, it came out unofficially, in that talk the subject of the invitation to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua was touched upon. The president of Mexico expressed your interest in their participation.

Mexico, a progressive ally of Latin America

Mexico is between the political and economic ties that unite it with the United States and the ideology of its president López Obrador. He always repeated the need to increase talks with these countries that Washington considers “undemocratic.”

It was even AMLO who presided over CELAC last year, before handing over command to Alberto Fernández. As TN learned, both leaders spoke in the last week about the need to make a call and press for the decision not to invite these three countries to the summit in Los Angeles to be reversed.

This is how the president of Mexico repeated: “ I will insist with President Biden that no country in the Americas be excluded from the summit.” Next to him, Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Cuban president who was in the sights of the White House since the protests in July of last year, listened very attentively.

Logically, the Cuban agreed with AMLO. He classified as “unjustified” the exclusion of “countries of our region from hemispheric events.” He was not very enthusiastic that this would finally be reversed: “It seems that it will happen”, he sentenced, referring to the absence of the invitation.