Five developments worth knowing from Joe Biden’s Summit of the Americas in L.A.
The ninth Summit of the Americas, hosted in Los Angeles this week by the United States, kicked off amid low expectations.
A boycott from Mexico and other countries in the hemisphere over the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua threatened to derail the event. And the Biden administration’s agenda for the gathering, particularly its economic component, has been criticized by regional observers and analysts as lacking ambition and clarity.
U.S. officials this week have pushed back against critics, laying out a number of initiatives in several areas they say deliver meaningful progress toward regional cooperation.
“It is a critical time for this hemisphere,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the summit on Wednesday, listing several crises impacting the region, including the COVID-19 pandemic, increased inequality, climate change and “historic” migration.
“We are doing things that will have an impact if we follow through,” he said.
Among the U.S. commitments pledged so far:
1. Providing food security assistance
The U.S. government pledged $331 million in food security aid for the region and entered into a collaboration with Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and Mexico — the hemisphere’s largest exporters of food – to increase food and fertilizer production. While some experts in the region said the sum was inadequate to meet the needs of the region, where the number of people living with hunger increased by 13.8 million in just one year amid the pandemic, Biden administration officials said it would fund critical emergency and long-term assistance.
“Food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean is increasing after more than a year of inflationary pressures, rising energy and fuel prices, disruptions from the global pandemic, the ongoing impacts of climate change and extreme weather, and the impact of the war in Ukraine,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power said. “Countries that rely significantly on imports for food are particularly vulnerable to rising food costs, and many in the region are experiencing the highest rates of inflation and increases in food prices in more than ten years.”
While $198 million of the USAID pledge will go to emergency food security programming, the remaining funds, committed to longer-term needs, are subject to congressional approval. If approved, the remaining $132 million would go toward helping smallholder farmers in Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Peru to improve productivity of high-value horticulture crops, increase incomes, and bolster farmers’ ability to withstand price shocks, Power said.
2. Collaborating on climate
The Biden administration launched a new partnership with Caribbean nations aiming to support climate adaptation and energy security in the region by 2030. The initiative, led by Vice President Kamala Harris, focuses on improving regional access to development financing for climate initiatives and facilitating clean energy investments.
More broadly across the region, the White House said it would begin working closely with four regional banks that have made $50 billion available over the next five years to support ambitious climate action, and pledged $12 million to support Brazil, Colombia, and Peru in preserving the Amazon.
The United States has refused to put a price tag on the package and Caribbean nations, which have long emphasized the need for U.S. support to get low-interest concessional financing, say how the U.S. pledge is received will depend on financing.
3. Creating a framework for economic cooperation
The administration said that a new economic partnership called “the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity” aims to mobilize new investments in the region, combat climate change and streamline regional supply chains. President Joe Biden also said he is committed to reforms of the Inter-American Development Bank Group and to invest in the IDB’s private sector lending arm. While the summit won’t result in new trade agreements, officials said the framework is meant to shore up cooperation as China continues to expand its economic influence in the region.
Experts have long advised the administration to better integrate Latin America into U.S. supply chains. Green technology companies have their eye on Latin America’s vast supplies of copper, lithium and other sought-after minerals, but these countries need to improve their infrastructure and energy systems to persuade companies to invest, said Benjamin Gedan, the acting director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program.
“There are no signs Biden has found significant new resources to invest in Latin America,” Gedan said. “But he seems to have settled on another way to help, by broadening eligibility for U.S. aid and loans that are traditionally reserved for poor countries.”
4. Training health workers
In response to the coronavirus pandemic — and in anticipation of future crises – the United States and the Pan American Health Organization announced the creation of the Americas Health Corps, a partnership between governments and academic institutions across the region that will expand and train up to 500,000 new public health workers by 2030.
Director Dr. Carissa Etienne said last month that the region faced a deficit of 600,000 health professionals, which was gravely affecting rural and underserved areas of the region. A World Health Organization study estimates that among the effects of the pandemic, an estimated 115,000 health workers died between January 2020 and May 2021 worldwide.
“The pandemic has laid bare the fact that we can no longer ignore long-standing deficiencies in our health systems,” said Dr. James Fitzgerald, director of PAHO’s health systems and services department. “We welcome this opportunity to work together with the United States to equip the next generation of the health workforce in the Americas.”
5. Declaring commitments on migration
While the presidents of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala — critical nations in the regional migration crisis — declined to participate in the L.A. summit themselves, their governments worked closely for weeks with U.S. counterparts on a “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration” that will be formally announced on Friday.
“The declaration represents a mutual commitment to invest in regional solutions that enhance stability, increase opportunities for safe and orderly migration through the region, and crack down on criminal and human trafficking who prey on desperate people,” Biden told the summit on Wednesday.
Harris also announced new investment commitments from the U.S. private sector to create economic opportunity in Central America, a core pillar of the president’s strategy to address the root causes of migration. The pledges total $3.2 billion since May 2021, but many doubt the money will be put fast enough to steam the unprecedented levels of migrants on the move.
Questions linger over how the administration can accomplish results when several Central American leaders and the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — three countries that have become major sources of migrants — were not attending the summit.
McClatchy White House correspondent Michael Wilner reported from Washington, and Miami Herald staff writer Jacqueline Charles reported from Miami.
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 2:28 PM with the headline "Five developments worth knowing from Joe Biden’s Summit of the Americas in L.A.."
