The US will invite democratically elected leaders to the Summit of the Americas

U.S He plans to invite those leaders of the continent who have been democratically elected to the IX Summit of the Americas, to be held from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles, and in which he wants to close a regional pact on migration.

This was stated by a senior US official when giving details about the meeting, which brings together the heads of state and government of the continent every three or four years and which this year is organized by the United States for the first time since the original summit, held in Miami in 1994. .

“Anyone who has been democratically elected will be invited to the summit,” said the official, who requested anonymity, during a telephone press conference.

The source declined to confirm whether that means the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, whom Washington considers dictators, will be left out, saying it has not yet made any final decisions on the invitations.

However, he made it clear that “there is no doubt that the president of Guatemala (Alejandro Giammattei) will be invited to the summit, and that (so will be) the president of El Salvador”, Nayib Bukele.

Neither these two leaders nor the outgoing president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, were invited in December to a virtual summit of democracies organized by the US president, Joe Biden, something that the White House justified by the “challenges” of corruption in those countries. .

However, the official stressed that Biden wants to “speak personally and debate with those leaders about these issues of corruption” and about the challenges to democracy that, he acknowledged, “also faces” the United States.

“If we only invite people who agree with us, we are not really going to have a debate,” he opined.

He added that the United States will consult with the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) —which acts as technical secretary of the summit— to finalize the list of invitees.

The meeting held in Panama City in 2015 was the only one attended by all the leaders of the 35 countries that make up the OAS, including Cuba.

The Cuban government was also represented at the last edition of the summit, in 2018 in Lima, but in that case the great absence was that of Venezuela, after Peru withdrew the invitation due to the worsening of the political crisis in that country.

The priorities of the United States at the June summit will be to talk about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the search for a “green and equitable” economic recovery, the strengthening of democracies on the continent and the response to migration, depending on the source.

On this last point, the United States hopes to reach “an agreement or a broad series of principles” for the management of migratory flows in the countries “that are the source, place of transit” or destination of undocumented immigrants and refugees, he explained.

The Summit of the Americas will be held from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles, a city that Washington has chosen for its “majority Hispanic” population, and will have a “hybrid” format due to the pandemic, with some meetings in person and others. “virtual,” the official said.