Speaking from Havana on Sunday, López Obrador also vowed to continue pushing the U.S. to lift its 60-year embargo on Cuba.
Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in March 2021. (UN Women/Paola Garcia)
By Kenny Stancil
Common Dreams
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday that no nation in the Western Hemisphere should be left out of the Summit of the Americas, directly refuting Washington’s attempt to bar Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the U.S.-hosted meeting.
“Nobody should exclude anyone,” López Obrador said during a public event in Cuba, according to Reuters.
The Mexican leader’s remarks come as the U.S. State Department has indicated that government representatives from three Latin American countries are unlikely to be invited to the June summit in Los Angeles.
“Cuba, Nicaragua, the [Nicolás] Maduro regime [in Venezuela] do not respect the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and therefore I don’t expect their presence,” Western Hemisphere Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said in an interview last week.
Brian Nichols, in red tie, with then Secretary of State John Kerry to his right, in Lima, Peru, for a climate meeting in December 2014. Nichols, now Western hemisphere assistant secretary of state, was then U.S. ambassador to Peru. (State Department)
“It’s [U.S. President Joe Biden’s] decision,” Nichols added, “but I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy — they will not receive invitations.”
[Related: Biden Vacillates as Venezuela’s Maduro Gains Ground]
Following Obama-era efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, the Trump administration adopted more than 200 policies designed to punish the Caribbean island. Despite Democratic lawmakers’ pleas and Biden’s own campaign pledge to reverse his predecessor’s “failed” approach, the White House has implemented additional sanctions in recent months.
Speaking from Havana on Sunday, López Obrador vowed to continue pushing the U.S. to lift its 60-year embargo on Cuba.
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Meanwhile, Biden has described the 2021 reelection of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, as fraudulent.
In addition, Washington does not officially recognize elected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate leader of the South American country even though he was reelected last year in a contest that U.S. legal observers called fair.
Instead, the U.S. recognizes Juan Guaidó — an unelected and unpopular right-wing opposition figure who was a key player in the unsuccessful Trump-backed effort to overthrow Maduro in 2019 — as president.
Biden went so far as to invite the Venezuelan coup leader to his administration’s so-called Summit for Democracy in December.
Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
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Alert! Sunday, May 29, 2022!
The Miami Caravan Against The U.S. Blockade of Cuba
For 23 months now, the Miami Caravan Against The U.S. Blockade has mobilized Cubans and non-Cubans alike, to build bridges of love [Puentes de Amor] between the jeople of Cuba and the United States.
We believe that our steadfast work to fight to lift the blockade and build bridges Cuba/USA is bringing positive change to Miami. Our work has helped to inspire a growing and monthly synchronization of actions against the blockade in the USA and around the world.
We humbly ask our sisters and brothers throughout North America for your support and participation on the weekend of the May 29 caravans.
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Join us here in Miami for what will be an exciting weekend of events beginning on the evening of Saturday, May 28.
For more information:
[email protected]*m or
[email protected]*m or
[email protected]*m
If governments which do not respect democracy are forbidden to attend, I suggest the US falls into that category.
The list of democratically-elected governments the US government has subverted is very long; Ukraine is a prefect example (in 2014).
I see many commenters on this threat sputtering in frustration at the almighty gall of the US saying that other countries who “don’t respect democracy” should not be invited to this summit. Well, even the Economist of all publications has called the US a flawed democracy and that if truly the best that could be said. We in the United States are in the embarrassing position of having to depend on the other countries of the world to push the US away and make us a pariah. That’s why the US fears China. The government knows that when the US dollar can’t be forced on everybody, we’re screwed. That’s why Russia’s demand to be paid in Rubles is so subversive for the US and much of Europe is lining up to comply and the rest of Europe won’t have gas. Russia might well succeed in doing to the US what we claimed we did to Russia – bankrupt the country.
The Mexican President should not be ignored. The high stature of the US as has been held by foreign nations is something that has taken a beating in many of these nations since 911. If the respective governments don’t openly show their concerns about US behavior we can rightfully suspect they are talking privately about the issue.
I never hear too much about what the citizens of those countries are thinking, the lying MSM just doesn’t cut it for being a reliable source any longer. I do hear reports from individuals I know, persons having no reason to fabricate such stories and what I hear is that many around the world feel the US government is a laughing stock. I don’t do face book but many use the platform to broaden their horizons. Something a large majority of Americans might benefit from doing.
Proof again that individuals cannot be fooled all the time. In fact machinations such as those this government continues to repeat have become “old hat” to the worlds savvy youth.
Thanks CN
Pleas(e) & a pledge
(for nothing):
Oh, my!
Look who strolls so close
to the edge of hemispheric
power, pockets their fee
in smug aggrandizement
then struts a crooked
path among haughty,
painted birds, perched
in exotic towers,
to sup from gold-
plated bowls.
So easily are plots
disguised in lies &
banality to mask their true
origins in pay-back &
venality & wounded pride.
(inspired by how little was offered by or expected from demos’ use of power to keep their word & by photo at top)
Classic Eng lang cliche: “Put your $$ where your mouth is”… IOW, AMLO… “Mex will not attend w/o invites 2 ALL”
The stupid, lame-brained hypocrisy is expected at this point. Brian Nichols is just another State apparatchik who can’t tell the difference between democracy and a criminal enterprise.
Washington’s idea of “democracy” is appointing its puppet of choice to lead every country in the world. That puppet will, obviously, carry out policy that primarily advances the interests of the United States and its sundry corporate oligarchs. Once the entire rest of the world learns that simple lesson, peace and goodwill will cover the land. Bad form by President Lopez-Obrador criticising the world’s only uni-polar hegemon that will now be forced to sanction and condemn his country until many common citizens are starved and made homeless just like those intransigent Cubans.
I found it amusing where the article makes clear that Biden campaigned on returning to good relations with countries that Trump had harshly sanctioned (for example, Cuba and Iran) but, after winning, essentially doubled down on the already onerous impediments that Trump had levied, proving once again that no other country on earth can compete with American hypocrisy. If Biden makes a promise, you can put it in the bank that he is lying through his false teeth to you.
“It’s [U.S. President Joe Biden’s] decision,” Nichols added, “but I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy — they will not receive invitations.”
Another day ….another bit of rancid hypocrisy
US is isolated on international forum on the subject of Cuban sanctions. Yes. US is an isolated international pariah what AMLO almost said.
If there’s one rogue nation in the world, it’s the US. It should be disinvited from ALL international political events until it discovers what democracy is and implements it. Fat chance of that though!
The US says democracy when it means fascism. You have to decode the imperial definitions of words.
Countries that don’t respect democracy will not be invited, I wonder if that includes countries that cheat at elections? Just a thought!
How about sanctions imposed on the US??? And not just for Cuba’s cruel embargo – for all the nefarious acts committed for so long over the entire planet…and still no end in sight.
“I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy.” – with this criterion, US should be nowhere near the summit.