This week, leaders from America meet in Los Angeles for the ninth America Summit. This was the only meeting where the leaders of this continent gathered. However, the summit did not go smoothly because US President Joe Biden who also hosted the summit did not invite all the leaders from the continent.

The leaders of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela were not welcome at the summit, which is why other leaders were also absent. Particularly painful is the absence of America’s southern neighbor: Mexico. Biden has not invited left-wing leaders over human rights abuses.

Leaders from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay did perform in California. ‘Discussions about the summit are more about the organization of the summit itself than about the content’, notes American expert Koen Petersen. ‘We are mainly talking about the economy, democracy and migration flows. But the biggest discussion is that some leaders were not invited.’

Migration discussion

And the absence of a number of countries makes discussing migration very difficult, Petersen said. ‘This migration flow ensures that the pressure on the southern border of the United States is enormous. For Biden, it is very politically sensitive. He therefore hopes to reach an agreement that will reduce migration pressures in return for boosting the economies of South American countries.’

‘Rub on face’

The Mexican president may not be present, but that doesn’t mean Mexico isn’t represented at the summit at all. “The Secretary of State was present, but it is a big scratch on the face, in particular, of the US itself, that the Mexican president missed this summit,” Petersen said.

The first summit was held in 1994 in Miami and the conference is being held in the US for the second time this year. The previous US summit was in the Peruvian capital Lima and even then disagreements about authoritarian regimes in Venezuela and Cuba were particularly divisive. President Donald Trump then canceled his participation at the last minute to the chagrin of his continent’s counterparts.