Bungled Summit of Americas diplomatic nightmare for US

FAILED POLICIES

The summit fails to help resolve the region's pressing problems, such as mass immigration, arms trafficking, and weak public healthcare, due to the lack of political will on the part of the United States, said analysts.

Washington aims to strengthen its schemes to contain would-be migrants in their countries of origin or countries of transit, without investing what is needed to reduce poverty, the driving factor behind mass migration, Mexican political scientist Eduardo Roldan said.

The phenomenon of migrant caravans "is not going to be resolved because its causes are not being addressed," said Roldan, a former diplomat.

Mexican academic Rodolfo Casillas agreed with the view, noting that a regional pact on immigration the United States aims to reach at the summit only focuses on containment, not poverty reduction.

Effective immigration control requires "major investment," the researcher and professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Science told Xinhua recently.

But so far, the amounts offered by US cooperation programs through its Agency for International Development are "laughable," Casillas said, adding that this cooperation comes at a high cost of job creation and consumption, because the recipient countries have to spend the funds "to buy American products" and hire "American directors and evaluators."

Roldan said that stemming the flow of weapons across the border will also prove elusive because the US National Rifle Association, "the most powerful lobby group in American politics," sways policy by bankrolling US lawmakers' election and reelection campaigns.

"Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want to confront it as that lobby often contributes to the campaigns of candidates for representatives, senators and president, so the only thing left to do is confront arms trafficking in other countries, as Mexico is seriously doing," Roldan said.

In August 2021, Mexico's government filed a lawsuit at a US federal court against eight US arms manufacturers and distributors, accusing them of engaging in negligent and illicit practices that abet arms smuggling.

Mexican authorities estimate that at least half a million weapons flow illegally each year from the United States into the hands of criminals south of the border, fueling armed violence.

Roldan believes pandemic preparedness may also be glossed over during the summit, given that the United States handled the epidemic "terribly" at home, and sat on the sidelines when Latin American countries were battling with their own outbreaks.