Los Angeles: US President Joe Biden headed to the Latin American summit on Wednesday and was tasked with bringing the region back as his administration pushed out a pledge that included plans to train 500,000 health workers. The long-awaited Summit of the Americas was hurt by a boycott from the Mexican president who was angry that Biden did not invite leftist leaders from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela because they did not meet the standards of democracy. ..
The Biden administration argues that there are no harsh sentiments and is pursuing an initiative aimed at strengthening relations across Latin America, where rising China is increasingly invading, despite the historic US influence. I did. Hours before Biden’s arrival, his administration aimed to improve the skills of 500,000 health workers across the region, based on lessons from Covid-19, which hit the Western Hemisphere particularly hard. Announced the new American Health Corps.
Health training costs $ 100 million, but the United States does not donate all of it and is trying to raise money through the Pan American Health Organization and others. According to a White House statement, the pandemic “showed many rifts in our global healthcare system and emphasized the importance of a strong and resilient healthcare system for the entire population.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, China has strengthened its role in Latin America and has been working early on to supply vaccines. Cuba has also been exporting state-owned doctors for a long time. This allegedly stopped funding the Pan American Health Organization because it infuriated Donald Trump’s previous administration.
The health announcement will be made the day after Vice President Kamala Harris details another $ 1.9 billion commitment by companies to invest in poverty-stricken El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The problems of the so-called Northern Triangle and Haiti have caused a surge in immigrants to the United States, causing domestic anger as Trump’s Republicans demand efforts to stop them. “We know that Americans will benefit from stable and prosperous neighbors, and when we offer financial opportunities to the people of Central America, we work on an important impetus for migration. “Harris said.
“Nearshoring”
Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Governor Mauricio Cluber Carone said Latin America is becoming more and more a “sea of ​​peace” for investors amid the global turmoil caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increased risks associated with manufacturing. He said it could be considered. Jaguar Note China.
The head of the IADB, which is funding development in Latin America, said companies are approaching the market rather than China, and “nearshoring” is emerging. “A $ 1 paid to China is $ 1, an investment, and a job less for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles since the first Summit of the Americas in 1994.
In Latin America, “whether they are left or right governments, they all want foreign investment, they all want nearshoring, they all want economic growth.” He said. Bill Clinton’s first summit in Miami aimed to create a vast free-trade area that spans the communist non-Cuba hemisphere. Biden will only hold the 2nd Summit of the Americas in the United States at a time when political desire for free trade has diminished in Washington, and Trump will attack trade liberalization as it hurt workers. Partially seized power.
But Biden is sticking to democracy, another core principle of the Summit of the Americas, despite considering going to Saudi Arabia, an important oil supplier next month. Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador argued that all countries in the hemisphere should be included, but is still a stance favored by several other regional leaders who have agreed to come. Biden expects to meet individually with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, Latin America’s most populous country, despite growing concerns that Trump’s allies will not accept the legitimacy of the next election. It has been. – AFP
