[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is the meeting that few American heads of state want to attend. Donald Trump, for one, cancelled on Tuesday his maiden trip to Latin America for the eighth Summit of the Americas in Lima, saying he needed to oversee the US response to a suspected chemical attack in Syria.
Nicolás Maduro will be another no-show after he was disinvited for his failure to heed calls for democratic reform — although the Venezuelan president has threatened to gatecrash the event “by air, land or sea”.
One reason why presidents from around the hemisphere may feel lukewarm about attending the summit on Friday and Saturday is its official theme — “democratic governance against corruption”. Brazil’s Michel Temer is under investigation for graft, while officials in the government of Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto are ensnared in corruption allegations. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the former president of summit host Peru, had to resign last month because of corruption allegations.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, is under investigation for alleged collusion with Russia, which he denies. With the president’s eyes on Syria, US vice-president Mike Pence will travel in his stead.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN ISSUES?
Pan-American solidarity is unlikely to be among them. At the first summit, in Miami in 1994, the region agreed to create a continental Free Trade zone, an initiative that went nowhere. Neither did the highlight of the last summit in 2014, which was the budding rapprochement between Cuba and the US, an initiative since partially reversed by Mr Trump. This year’s event is more likely to be shaped by open disagreement than feigned harmony.
There are likely to be three main issues on the table. First, corruption and transnational crime, especially as the Odebrecht corruption scandal has scarred dozens of political business leaders around the region. Second, trade with China and the re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). And third, how to deal with Venezuela’s deepening economic and political crises. Only on Venezuela is there likely to be anything resembling consensus.
WHY DID MY TRUMP CANCEL?
The better question is why he wanted to go in the first place given his unpopularity in the region. Only 16 per cent of Latin Americans approve of the US president, according to a Gallup poll. Mr Trump has complained about US job losses to Mexico, pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threatened to rip up Nafta and ban Canadian imports of steel and aluminium. He has described Hispanic immigrants as “rapists” and drug dealers, and threatened to cut off aid to Colombia and Peru, two of the US’s most stalwart allies in the region. A backlash may be looming: on Monday, Mexico ordered a review of all its US co-operation agreements.
Mr Pence will instead take any heat from regional leaders. His main message is likely to centre around trade, although whether he will be able to convincingly argue that the region should trust the US as its preferred partner over China is moot. China is now South America’s largest trading partner, and Beijing has promised $250bn in direct investment by 2019.
Mr Trump’s decision to pull out of the summit was criticised at home on Tuesday.
“Since its inception, every US president has attended the summit,” said Elliot Engel, a Democratic member of the House committee on foreign affairs. “If the president of the United States is indeed the leader of the free world, that person should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
“Unfortunately, today’s announcement should come as no surprise from an administration whose policy towards the region begins with building a wall between our country and our southern neighbours.”
WILL A NAFTA DEAL BE ANNOUNCED?
Almost certainly not, which is another reason Mr Trump may have decided to cancel. After six months of talks, the US, Canada and Mexico want something to show. The Mexican government wants to nail down an agreement in principle before its July 1 presidential election, especially as leftwing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador leads opinion polls. The White House also hopes for a domestic political win before November’s US midterm elections. On Monday, Mexico’s economy minister Ildefonso Guajardo said the odds of an “agreement in principle” by the first week of May were 80
per cent.
WHAT ABOUT VENEZUELA?
The country’s growing authoritarianism, humanitarian crisis and role as a source of regional instability are things that everybody agrees on. The question is what to do about them. The US plus the Group of Lima — an informal grouping of the region’s 12 biggest economies, including Canada, Brazil and Mexico — may escalate individual sanctions against Mr Maduro and his cronies, as Panama did last week. Reportedly, Washington is also considering barring the 350,000 barrels per day of oil that Venezuela exports to the US.
For Latin America, the most immediate problem is how to deal with up to 4m Venezuelans who have fled their country since 1999, with well over half a million refugees in Colombia alone.
“By staying behind, President Trump risks sending the message that the US relationship with Latin America is not a priority,” said Roberta Braga, assistant director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council. “This is especially problematic given the dire and escalating humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.
“With the potential for a trilateral meeting with Mexico and Canada, it was also a chance to show continued momentum around a successful Nafta renegotiation.”
