The editors of the Washington Post are dismayed at the rise of nationalism in the Americas:
The Summit of the Americas, 2022 edition, opens on Monday in Los Angeles, but President Biden is still struggling to finalize the list of leaders who will attend. His counterparts in key countries, notably Mexico, are threatening to boycott unless the United States accepts attendance by the Cuban, Venezuela and Nicaraguan dictatorships. Mr. Biden stands accused of feckless leadership at a time when the United States must orchestrate regional responses to mass migration, covid-19 and inflation.
Mr. Biden should not welcome the region’s tyrants to a meeting for democratically chosen leaders. The attempt to make him do so is symptomatic of more than just long-standing regional disagreements over whether and how to isolate dictators, however. The world, and the Western Hemisphere, have changed since December 1994, when President Bill Clinton presided over the first Summit of the Americas in Miami. At that moment of post-Cold War triumph for the United States and its democratic capitalist model, a consensus in favor of free trade and free elections reigned; Cuban communism, in economic free fall due to the loss of Soviet subsidies, appeared doomed. As the summits recurred every three or four years, U.S.-Latin American trade promotion deals spread from Mexico to the Andes. Moderate politics flourished; absolute poverty rates fell.
That relative harmony lies in the past.
What strikes me about this kerfuffle is that just about everybody is wrong. The editors are wrong in their characterization of the summit. It is not a “meeting for democratically chosen leaders”. It is a summit of the membership of the Organization of American States. Cuba has been readmitted to the OAS contingent on making certain reforms which it has not made so no invitation for Cuba. Venezuela and Nicaragua have renounced their membership so they should not participate, either. AMLO is wrong because the summit is a meeting of the OAS not anybody who wants to attend. President Biden is wrong because all present members of the OAS should be invited. About that there should be no ambiguity.
Diplomacy means dealing with individuals and regimes whom you may not like. It doesn’t mean you deal only with your friends.
Nationalism is on the rise all over the world. The Russian-Ukraine War is an expression of that nationalism on the part of both Russians and Ukrainians. Nationalism is clearly rising both in China and India, just to name Asia’s two largest countries. What we are learning, apparently to the editors’ chagrin, is that in Latin America nationalism consists in part of opposition to the United States.
The only thing that bothers me about the rise of nationalism is that too many Americans see nationalism as a dirty word.
One more point: the editors are mistaken. The “consensus” they mention was illusory. Any consensus was completely downstream of American military might and American military might was downstream of American economic strength. If they want it back, they should favor a resurgence of that economic strength or, in other words, a little more American nationalism.
