What the Summit of the Americas Mess Really Tells Us
Latin American governments are keen to show Washington it’s a new era. But this is also a tale of democracies in decline, writes AQ’s editor-in-chief.
The whole controversy has a distinctly post-imperial feel to it: One by one, several governments in Latin America and the Caribbean are drawing a line in the sand, saying their presidents may not attend the Summit of the Americas next month unless the host, Washington, agrees to invite everybody—including the region’s dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. But what feels to many like Latin American solidarity, or a golden opportunity to stick it in Uncle Sam’s eye, also tells a less flattering story about the region’s current political reality—namely, a wavering commitment...
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