Mexican President To Skip US Summit Over Guest List

Politico reports:

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will skip the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles later this week over objections to President Joe Biden’s guest list for the event.

López Obrador confirmed his decision Monday following weeks of threats that he would to stay home if the White House refused to invite authoritarian leaders from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the summit.

The Mexican president said that his foreign affairs secretary will lead the Mexican delegation to the summit in his absence, and the Mexican president will instead visit communities affected by a recent hurricane.

The Associated Press reports:



López Obrador had been leading a chorus of mostly leftist leaders pushing the U.S. to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the gathering taking place on U.S. soil for the first time since 1994.

Other leaders, including from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the three main drivers of migration to the U.S. — have indicated they’ll stay away too. “There cannot be a summit if all countries are not invited,” López Obrador said Monday.

The Biden administration said it would not include autocratic governments that jail opponents and rig elections, pointing to a declaration from the 2001 summit in Quebec City, when the region’s governments committed to barring any government that breaks with democratic order from future gatherings.