US excludes Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua from regional summit

The Biden administration has made a final decision against inviting the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to a regional summit this week, bucking calls from Mexico’s president to include all countries or risk him staying home.

The US made the call after weeks of discussions with governments from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Mexico’s, according to people familiar with the deliberations, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak about the matter publicly, Bloomberg reports.

The US has non-government representatives from all three countries registered to participate in stakeholder forums, the people said.

The White House press office declined to comment.

The US’s choice is based on concerns about the lack of democracy and respect for human rights in the three countries, the people said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been saying for weeks that he would skip the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles unless representatives of the authoritarian governments were invited. The US had refused, citing their undemocratic records, but continued to discuss the issue with Mexico.

In turn, the leaders of other nations, including Guatemala and Honduras, said they may skip the summit as well.

The ninth Summit of the Americas will be held in Los Angeles from June 6-10. The summit brings together the heads of government for North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean: Canada, the United States, 19 Latin American countries and 14 Caribbean countries. This is the second time the United States will host the summit, after organizing the original meeting in Miami in 1994; since then, the summit has been held in countries throughout the Americas.