Bolivarian Alliance in front of the Summit of the Americas 2:20
(CNN) --
US government officials are still scrambling to confirm attendees and prepare announcements that President Joe Biden will make just a week before hosting Western Hemisphere leaders in Los Angeles for the Summit. of the Americas.
It is a rare last-minute attempt to salvage what officials once described as a top-priority event for relations in America's own neighborhood.
The absences of the most important leaders - especially the president of Mexico, who is threatening a boycott - risks undermining the meeting, even as Biden and his team try to make progress on politically sensitive issues, such as immigration on the southern border of United States and economic growth.
Yes, no, maybe: which presidents will go to the Summit of the Americas?
Officials say the summit will go ahead and have downplayed any concerns about who might attend.
They have begun finalizing Biden's agenda and program for the meeting, which will last several days.
Even before it begins, however, organizational wrangling at the summit has exposed rifts in a region where Biden had hoped to reassert US leadership.
Next week's Summit of the Americas will be the ninth meeting of the region's countries and the first time the United States has hosted the gathering since it opened in Miami in 1994. The gathering of nations, which spans from Canada in the north to Chile in the south offers an opportunity to strengthen ties at a time of historic migration and as China works tirelessly to make inroads into the region.
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The exclusion of countries in the Summit of the Americas 1:32
Both issues are of vital importance to Biden, who has raised competition with Beijing as the main challenge for the coming decades and has fought to control illegal border crossings.
But the success of the summit may depend on who attends.
Last month, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Mexico's participation will not be confirmed until the US invites all countries in the hemisphere, arguing that no country should be excluded from the summit.
US officials have repeatedly said that the autocratic governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will not be invited to the summit because of their record against human rights.
But Mexico and other nations in the region have closer ties to those countries and have called the decision exclusionary.
Senior officials in the Biden administration on Wednesday dismissed concerns about attendance at the upcoming Summit of the Americas, instead highlighting ongoing coordination between the countries to address regional issues.
"We still have to make some final considerations, but we will soon publicly report on the final guest list," said Juan Gonzalez, senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, adding, "We haven't focused so much on who is and who is not invited and more really on the results we want to achieve at the summit".
The US will not invite Maduro to the Summit of the Americas 0:49
Kevin O'Reilly, national coordinator for the Summit of the Americas, told lawmakers last week that Venezuela and Nicaragua have not been invited, but he turned to the White House to find out if anyone from the Cuban regime has been invited.
"That will be a decision for the White House to make," O'Reilly told Sen. Marco Rubio, who asked about the guest list.
The White House had been considering the possibility of inviting a Cuban representative, although no decision has yet been confirmed.
Cuba was not invited to the first editions of the Summit of the Americas, in the 1990s, but has participated in the latest versions.
Then-president Barack Obama had a historic handshake and a meeting with Raúl Castro at the summit organized by Panama in 2015.
The White House has refused to reveal a list of invitees, even in the days leading up to the start of the summit.
Pressed on whether poor attendance would hamper the summit's impact, González said the meeting would be "well attended" and that the relationship with Mexico "will continue to be positive."
The White House shrugged off questions about why details are being finalized a week before the summit begins.
Ortega: We are not interested in going to the Summit of the Americas 1:21
"I think if you've followed this administration for the last year and a half, a week is not the 11th hour when it comes to how things move. So that's a lifetime for us as the White House," he said Wednesday. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Still, he seemed to acknowledge that questions about aid had overshadowed some of the summit's goals.
"I know there are always questions about invitations, there are always questions about who is coming and who is not, but we should also talk and focus on what is the point of this meeting," he said.
The ebb and flow around summit attendance is indicative of changing dynamics in the Western Hemisphere, as some countries distance themselves from the United States.
Some US officials have downplayed some leaders' reluctance to attend as an attempt to appeal to their political base and warned against interpreting such decisions as a sign of waning US influence.
The administration has worked hard to maintain US influence in the region, including through recent high-level visits by First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Should Biden invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the Summit of the Americas?
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Former Senator Christopher Dodd, who is serving as special adviser to the summit, traveled to South America and met with officials from Brazil, Chile and Argentina.
Following Dodd's visit, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry confirmed that President Jair Bolsonaro will attend the summit and plans to hold his first bilateral meetings with Biden.
Relations between the United States and Brazil have been tense since former President Donald Trump, a political ally of Bolsonaro, failed in his bid for re-election.
The Brazilian president was one of the last world leaders to congratulate Biden following the 2020 US election and is publicly critical of US pressure to curb rising deforestation in Brazil's Amazon.
He was initially skeptical about traveling to Los Angeles for the summit and has complained that Biden ignored him when they met at the G20 last year.
But he agreed to attend when he was assured that he would not limit himself to one photo.
Dodd has held similar talks with other leaders in the region, including lengthy talks with López Obrador, though he has yet to secure a commitment from the Mexican leader to attend.
Even assistance from countries that work directly with the US government – and more specifically, with Harris – remains in question.
The leaders of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have also not yet committed to attending next week's summit, even though Harris has worked to cultivate relations in the region, including attending the president's inauguration. Honduran in January.
Harris spoke with Honduran President Xiomara Castro last week, but in the conversation he did not mention the summit.
Other nations, such as Chile and Argentina, have criticized Washington's decision to exclude certain countries.
AMLO: Relationship with the US will not change despite differences over the Summit 2:23
Latin American countries have been discussing assistance among themselves, according to a senior Guatemalan official.
"Each country has its own decision process and arguments to say we are going or we are not going," said the senior Guatemalan official.
Guatemala is expected to send a delegation to the summit, although it is not clear whether the president will attend.
The Biden Administration is preparing a declaration on migration for countries to sign that provides a framework for the protection of migrants.
"This declaration is going to allow us to focus on promoting the stabilization of communities that host migrants, helping those communities and the migrants they host, ensuring things like access to legal documentation and public services," he told reporters Wednesday. the press Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.
Controversy over Summit of the Americas leads to dialogue 3:23
Officials also expect results on boosting economic growth, coordinating recovery from the pandemic and combating climate change.
Democratic Representative Joaquín Castro expressed optimism about the summit, even if some countries do not attend.
"We can make it work. We have a daily relationship with these countries, but the summit is an opportunity for the countries to come together and plan," he told CNN.
However, Castro added that the countries that have not yet committed "would be missed" if they did not attend.
With no guarantees of who will attend, it is unclear what weight the summit's statements will carry.
Traveling through Latin America last week, First Lady Jill Biden – who will join her husband in Los Angeles for the opening ceremony and leaders' dinner – said she had been assured that the countries she visited, including Ecuador , Panama and Costa Rica, would attend the Summit of the Americas.
The first lady ruled out the possibility of a boycott.
"I'm not worried," she said.
"I think they will come."
Joe BidenThe Summit of the Americas
