The announcement of the suspension (postponement) of the 10th Summit of the Americas has not made many headlines in the regional press, nor has it caused any surprises among observers of international affairs or prompted statements from many foreign ministries in the region, at least in the first 24 hours after the announcement.
There was one small detail that set a precedent: the fact that Donald Trump had not confirmed his attendance until October 31. This is not the first time he has done so, as in 2018 he had the honor of being the first U.S. president to decline to attend this type of forum, when it took place in Peru. Mike Pence, in his capacity as vice president, represented the creators of this type of meeting at that time.
When these two events, which occurred seven years apart, are considered together, a very preliminary conclusion stands out: that the Manhattan businessman is not attracted to anything south of Mar-a-Lago in Florida in terms of potential profits or large projects.
Immediately after the announcement by the Dominican organizers, Secretary-Advisor-Archivist Marco Rubio, also without expressing surprise, “thanked” President Abinader, adding that they “fully supported the decision to postpone the summit,” which gives some insight into whose initiative it really was. He later said that they would continue to work with the Dominican Republic to plan a “productive” event (this one would not be) in 2026. That future meeting would focus on “strengthening alliances (which ones?) and improving the security of our citizens (Americans?)”.
No matter how hard the State Department tries to show that it is a decision “made by others” that they support, they have already been contradicted by President Abinader himself when he said that “the United States is the organizer of this type of event, we are simply the host.” In other words, the decision to suspend/postpone the event that would have taken place in early December clearly came from Washington, and the Dominicans were only left to announce it.
The next question to ask would then be: why did Washington wait to take this step just four weeks before the deadline? In international diplomatic practice, regional summits are events that are only suspended due to technical postponement, as the agenda of heads of state or government is not easily affected.
It is likely that the US State Department repeatedly insisted to the White House on the importance of the conclave and the need to be represented at the highest level. But apparently, it was unsuccessful.
Several observers of these issues have gone so far as to suggest that tensions around Venezuela are likely to increase and that a military coup may even be planned for those days in December. It is still unclear whether this would be before or after attacking Nigeria, which is the last of the enemies that Trump has placed among his priorities.
There are other clues that may lead us to probable answers and they have to do with the low level of representation, and possibly attendance, which was already reflected in the confirmation lists handled by protocol officials. In addition to the “uninvited” Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, the presidents of Mexico and Colombia had already declared their absence, although the relationship may still be handled with complete discretion. It would be a sin for American royalty to share a table with a small number of low-level officials from Latin America and, even more so, the Caribbean.
For now, what appears to be prioritized on the White House agenda for December 2 of this year is the reopening of public guided tours of its facilities, amid renovations, new luxurious marble bathrooms, and the use of money from “donors” who profit from million-dollar contracts facilitated by the government. The Nobel Prizes will be awarded much later, on December 10, and Trump already knows that he will not be receiving one this time around.
As is well known, these summits were created by the United States in 1994 (Miami) at a time when the supposed “end of history” was being proclaimed, with the disappearance of the so-called socialist camp, and copies of the recipes for achieving “neoliberal globalization” and creating a large “free trade” zone throughout the Western Hemisphere were being handed out en masse.
That goal was not achieved and, on the contrary, most of the region showed an unequivocal rejection of Washington’s impositions, particularly at the Fourth Summit held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2005, when a large number of the leaders in attendance supported a resounding “No to the FTAA” right under the nose of then-President George W. Bush.
These processes within the participating nations, together with the parallel creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), led to the end of the most complete isolation that had been imposed on Cuba for years. During the Sixth Summit, held in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in 2012, the entire region told then-President Barack Obama that if the mistake of not inviting the Caribbean island was not rectified, there would be no more meetings of this level in the future. The United States allowed the organizers of the Seventh Summit in Panama City to invite Havana, when it was already moving towards the possible reestablishment of bilateral diplomatic relations.
However, with Donald Trump’s total disregard for the countries of the region, which was reconfirmed by his aforementioned absence from the 2018 summit, plus the forced march to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, there were significant setbacks in the regional concert. Perhaps the most perfect summary of this situation was the resounding failure of the so-called Lima Group and the macabre antics of the then Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro.
For the second time, the United States organized a new summit in 2022, under Joe Biden in Los Angeles. Despite all the efforts of poorly trained and poorly coordinated diplomacy, they could not avoid another failure on their own turf. The desire to exclude Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua marked a meeting full of bright images and colors, but with no tangible concrete results. The fear of the advances of the People’s Republic of China and other “extra-continental powers” in the region was not enough to spur Washington to present relevant, much less well-financed, initiatives.
This time around the task that fell to the Dominican Republic was to convene, on behalf of the real managers and organizers, an event that would allow for the presentation of a supposed Latin American and Caribbean consensus that today resembles more of a puzzle. The governments of the region would be called upon to applaud Washington’s anti-immigrant policies, to share in the selective killings of small boat crews in the Caribbean, to celebrate the increased US military presence ever closer to strategic mineral and drinking water reserves, and to reduce controls on transnational corporations that devour the region’s resources while destroying the environment. What a task they entrusted to the Dominicans.
When announcing the postponement of the 10th Summit, the Dominican president said that when they aspired to host it in Los Angeles in 2022, it was unlikely to imagine the “deep divergences” that have arisen in achieving dialogue in the region. It is worth noting here that there is a specialty called foresight, which, when used and applied well to international relations by foreign ministries, allows them to construct scenarios with a certain degree of effectiveness. But this was not really difficult to foresee.
One need only look within the United States to understand that an increasingly divided and polarized country cannot offer unity to third parties. A country that retreats behind its borders to try to regain leadership in productivity and innovation on the basis of tariffs and more tariffs cannot offer fair trade or cooperation programs. A country where the arms business has grown exponentially will never fight for peace. An empire in clear decline does not embrace, but attacks.
We leave the questions to the experts: will the Summits of the Americas continue? Or are we already seeing “The End”?
José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba.
