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As President Joe Biden prepares to host Latin American leaders in Los Angeles, the White Home is downplaying Mexico’s boycott and pointing to the president’s observe file of diplomacy within the area because the bedrock for cooperation on urgent financial, migration, and local weather points.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s option to forgo the Summit of the Americas is “a sovereign resolution” that “we simply disagree with,” a senior administration official advised reporters on a name Monday. Lopez Obrador made the choice after Biden determined to not invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, international locations whose leaders the White Home slammed as “dictators.”

“We consider the perfect use of this summit is to convey collectively international locations that share a set of democratic ideas,” the official argued.

WHITE HOUSE: ‘WE DON’T REGRET’ WITHHOLDING AMERICAS SUMMIT INVITES FROM ‘DICTATORS’

The transfer by one in every of America’s closest regional allies is a blow to the Biden administration because it prepares to host the weeklong occasion for the primary time since 1994. Twenty-three heads of presidency are set to attend, however key regional companions are abstaining, together with these from Honduras and El Salvador, each international locations from the place america has sought to stem the move of migration.

Biden is predicted to make a number of bulletins, starting with a coverage speech Wednesday to introduce the Americas Partnership for Financial Prosperity, a plan to spice up regional funding and commerce, strengthen governments, and fight local weather change. He may also commit greater than $300 million in meals support. The president will moreover preview a gathering with different leaders later within the week to introduce a migration plan. Referred to as the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration, the initiative is carefully tied to different financial initiatives introduced in the course of the week.

“This summit is about constructing and strengthening our basis with our key companions on these points which might be most consequential for the international locations and other people of the area,” the official stated.

Biden has for many years “labored to comprehend his imaginative and prescient of the [Western] hemisphere that’s center class, safe, democratic,” the official stated. As vp beneath Barack Obama, Biden was the administration’s level particular person for diplomacy within the area, the place he visited greater than 16 instances.

Whereas Biden won’t be assembly with key regional companions equivalent to Lopez Obrador, he’s anticipated to take a seat down with others, together with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Venezuelan politician Juan Guaido. There’s “ probability” the president might meet with Guaido, whom the U.S. acknowledges because the nation’s interim president, the White Home stated.

Biden’s closest advisers will host occasions all through the week, together with his secretary of state, vp, secretary of commerce, commerce ambassador, and extra, aiming to bolster America’s dedication to a area carefully tied to the U.S. via commerce, migration, and different issues.

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“There’s no different a part of the world that impacts the safety and prosperity of america extra immediately than the Western Hemisphere,” the official stated.

The U.S. continues to face provide chain shortages in addition to a surge within the variety of migrants arriving on the southern border, each political considerations for Biden heading into the midterm elections.