Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
The 28th Iberoamerican Summit ended with a minimum agreement to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries. Still, it was unable to agree on that criterion in the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine due to political differences between some leaders who support Putin, and others who are defined by the Ukrainian people, the latter led by Spain.
However, the discussion at the Summit held in the Dominican Republic had other priorities. One of them has been the main banner of the Caribbean countries. Concern about climate change is a matter of life and death for most, if not all, of the Caribbean island countries. They are afraid of disappearing with the rise in sea levels due to the melting of the two poles of the globe: north and south. As President Petro of Colombia correctly said, “if climate change is not taken seriously, by 2070, this room where we are gathered will have flooded and will no longer exist.”
Leaders from 22 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries agreed on a green pact for the region, a food security strategy, a digital rights charter, and an action plan for Iberoamerican cooperation 2023-26. The Declaration of Santo Domingo, signed by all the countries at the end of the Summit, established as a priority to extend actions to help the Republic of Haiti recover internal peace and embark on the road to sustainable development.
Mexico’s absence from the Summit was widely commented on. The shared hypothesis regarding President Lopez Obrador’s absence was presumably because he was still angry with King Felipe VI for not answering a letter in which he demanded Spain apologize for excesses committed during the colonization of the Americas.
Mexico sent an undersecretary of Foreign Affairs to represent the country, not even the Chancellor. By prioritizing its anger with the King of Spain, Mexico snubbed all of Latin America and, most significantly, the Caribbean. Lopez Obrador’s childish attitude made it clear that Mexico applies a foreign policy from the presidential liver and not from a political rationality about what is in the national interest.
The countries of the Caribbean Basin are Mexico’s natural zone of influence. The Caribbean countries themselves and those of Central America, Colombia, and Venezuela make up the Caribbean Basin, which should be strongly linked to Mexico’s historical, geopolitical, and strategic interests. The Iberoamerican Summit in Santo Domingo was a stellar moment for Mexico’s foreign policy, as it would have been able to show its influence in the region. The absence of Brazil (Lula suffered an illness that prevented him from traveling, although he did send his Foreign Minister to represent Brazil), Mexico’s most significant competitor in terms of Latin American influence, offered Mexico the opportunity to play a central role in the Summit.
But Mexico opted, once again, for a de facto boycott of a regional meeting. It did the same with the Democracy Summit organized by President Biden in Los Angeles, California, last year. On that occasion, he called on all of Latin America to boycott the event because Biden refused to invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela for being countries that did not meet any democratic criteria. In that case, only two irrelevant countries joined López Obrador’s boycott: Honduras and Bolivia.
Mexico loses political presence by ignoring events such as the Iberoamerican Summit. But even more importantly, it loses authority before the region’s governments, essentially of the Caribbean Basin, by appearing disinterested, unreliable, and absent. This is the image that Mexico projects to the world and to its partners.
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