Guest list stirs tensions for Los Angeles conference

WASHINGTON — While President Biden travels in Asia, his administration is scrambling to salvage next month’s summit focused on Latin America.

The Summit of the Americas, which the United States is hosting for the first time since the inaugural event in 1994, is at risk of collapsing over concerns about the guest list. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has threatened to boycott if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua aren’t included. Unlike Washington, which considers the three autocratic governments as pariahs, Mexico’s leftist leader maintains regular ties with them.

A hollow summit would undermine efforts by the U.S. to reassert its influence in Latin America when China is making inroads and concerns grow that democracy is backsliding in the region.

Now Biden is considering inviting a Cuban representative to attend the summit as an observer, according to a U.S. official who declined to be identified while speaking about sensitive deliberations. It’s unclear if Cuba would accept the invitation — which would be extended to a person in the foreign ministry, but not the foreign minister himself — and whether that would assuage Lopez Obrador’s concerns.

Lopez Obrador said Friday that he “wants everyone to be invited,” but indicated that he was hopeful about reaching a resolution, adding that “we have a lot of confidence in President Biden and he respects us.”

Even if Lopez Obrador attends, there could still be a notable absence in Los Angeles: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who leads Latin America’s most populous country, hasn’t said whether he’ll attend.

The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment. Ned Price, speaking for the U.S. State Department, said the first wave of invitations was sent out Thursday, but there could be additions. He declined to say who had gotten invitations.

He said speculation about who was attending was “understandable,” noting that Biden will be the first U.S. president to attend the summit since 2015, when President Barack Obama went to Panama.

President Donald Trump skipped the next summit in Peru in 2018, sending Vice President Mike Pence in his place.