Kamala Harris tries to channel the battered Summit of the Americas

Among the missions Joe Biden commissioned upon arrival at the White House the US Vice President Kamala Harrisnone is more far-reaching than addressing the Central American population migration crisisand especially the so-called Northern Triangle that make up Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. In the 15 months that have elapsed since then, Harris’s efforts have not borne much fruit, at least clearly, and some mistakes have left more echo, such as the message of “do not come” that Harris launched on his first visit to the region. This Tuesday, in any case, the vice president assumed the also complex mission of try to channel the Summit of the Americasan appointment that was born battered and more marked by polemics on attendees than on content.

In The Angelswhere the ninth edition of this conclave that met for the first time in Miami in 1994, Harris announced a investment from 10 private sector companies american of $1.9 billion in the Northern Triangle. Added to the 1.2 billion already committed by dozens of other companies at the end of last year, they will bring up to nearly 3.2 billion total private spending in the area, with which it is about improving the working and living conditions of Central Americans to dissuade them from emigrating north.

Among the investments detailed by the White House are, for example, one of 700 million from Millicom to expand the mobile and broadband networks in the Northern Triangle. Visa, for its part, will allocate 270 million over five years to promote the digital payment and two clothing manufacturers, San Mar and Gap Inc, will spend $500 million and $150 million respectively over the next three years to increase production in Central America, potentially creating close to 9,000 jobs.

Harris also had on the agenda the presentation of a empowerment program with which it will try to promote the connection of 1.4 million Central American women to financial systems and the digital economy, as well as a training program for half a million adults and young people.

absences

The White House is making an effort to focus on this investment message. He thus tries to leave behind the controversies that have surrounded and tarnished a summit in which Biden will be from Wednesday but in which he will notmany countries will not be represented by their heads of state but by delegations.

In most cases, and in some prominent ones such as that of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, these absences are expression of protest because of Washington’s decision to not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is something that the White House press secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre, said on Monday that she obeys Biden’s position that “does not believe that dictators should be invited”. But the decision is also planned by the weight of national and electoral politics, with an eye always on Florida. And the end result is that the highest political leaders of Mexico and the entire Northern Triangle, key countries in the migration issue, are not present in Los Angeles.

Some of these absences, such as that of the Honduran president, Xiomara Castro, are also significant for Harris’s difficulties in relations with countries where Washington also points to the corruption, violence or the situation of women. Harris had personally spoken with Castro on the phone recently but has been unable to get him to come to the summit.

rain of criticism

Criticism about the appointment, and about the foreign policy of the Biden Administration towards Latin America, has been constant. Last week Dan Restrepo, who was Obama’s adviser, assured in an opinion piece in the ‘Los Angeles Times’ that “the Summit of the Americas is a fatally flawed forum”. And Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, told the newspaper that “the problems with the summit can also be attributed to the lsorry state of American politics and the region”.

Also in the Los Angeles newspaper, Brett Bruen, who served in the Barack Obama White House and frequently criticizes Biden, has said that the conclave is “a unmitigated disaster for US diplomacy in our own hemisphere”. The expert has called both the chaos over the invitations and the lack of announcements about specific goals that are going to be presented a “national shame” and has assured that what happened reinforces the impression that the area is not a priority for the White House.

Migration and China

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Biden, according to sources from the Administration, is going to propose several initiatives in his presence at the summit, including a economic framework proposal to deal with issues such as vulnerabilities in supply chains or a rReport of the Inter-American Development Bankas well as a new climate and energy alliance with Caribbean countries. It will also present a immigration proposal, in which Spain can play an important role, but details have not been revealed.

Without specific trade agreements, in any case, some observers and experts see Washington increasingly weakened in the region against China. Benjamin Gadin, an analyst for Latin America at the Wilson Center, told ‘Politico’ that “both under the administrations of Donald Trump and that of Biden, the United States has offered few alternatives to infrastructure financing” that Beijing is carrying out in the area. And the Council on Foreign Relations has recalled that China is already the main trading partner of South America and the second for all of Latin America, where it is also intensifying cooperation in technology, security and culture with various countries.