The Summit and the Crisis of US Hegemony

By Angel Guerra Cabrera on April 18, 2022

illustration: Victor Aquilar

The chaotic political situation created by the United States (US) government in the face of the IX edition of the so-called Summit of the Americas reflects, in the first place, the reluctance of the empire to accept the serious crisis of leadership and hegemony it suffers on a global scale. Washington has aroused rebellion and distrust in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with its shady and undemocratic handling of the preparations for the upcoming meeting in Los Angeles, and its exclusionary attitude as host. Since the VI Summit in Cartagena, it was already a clamor from the governments of the region that there should be no exclusions and that Cuba should be invited to the next one. By virtue of this demand, then President Raul Castro participated in the VII Summit in Panama and the historic meeting between the veteran revolutionary and Obama took place, the first between leaders of the island and the U.S. since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Therefore, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s courageous opposition to the exclusions is not an occurrence, as the politicians and media mouthpieces of the right are hysterically shouting. It responds to a heartfelt demand of the people and the majority of Latin American and Caribbean governments. To cite an important example, the existing rejection among CARICOM member countries regarding an eventual exclusion of Havana is well known, and also because of the rude pressures to which they are subjected by Washington to accept it. The non-participation of Cuba would be a serious historical setback after it was also invited to the VIII Summit in Lima, as denounced more than a month ago by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.

But President Biden and, in general, the U.S. elites, seem to be totally overwhelmed by the crisis and, to get out of it, they find no other way but to resort to the old aggressive and warlike formulas, even if they are expressed in new ways. This is the case of the current multidimensional world war – of which Ukraine is but one of several theaters of operations and the sacrificial victim of “Western” arrogance – whose cause can only be explained by two realities. The first is that Washington refuses to accept that the world has changed and that the unipolarity that followed the collapse of the USSR (1991) was ephemeral and now unsustainable. The second is that the leader of neo-liberal globalization is increasingly accentuating an adventurous and very dangerous attitude, consisting of obstinate attempts to impose by force the anachronistic hegemonic exclusivity, as if there were no international actors of the stature of China and Russia, both unavoidable interlocutors in the new global order that is being born. Although relying on its powerful war propaganda machine and on appearances the US has led the unwary to believe that Russia is the aggressor, the most serious analysts anchored in the interests of the peoples clearly see the inveterate bellicosity of Washington, which since 1997 has been steadily moving NATO’s borders towards Russia, with the purpose of harassing and encircling it militarily, to the point of installing on such a sensitive flank as the Ukrainian one a government with enormous influence of the ultra-nationalist and Russophobic extreme right and even of the neo-Nazis, in order to establish a NATO arms base there, even though Ukraine had not joined the alliance.  Incidentally, the same policy is being pursued with regard to China, as we can see in the growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. In short, it is not difficult to understand that the US – together with its “Western” cronies – is solely responsible for having dragged Europe and the world into the current conflict, with unpredictable consequences.

Also in LAC, as a result of the crisis of hegemony, the empire has no other recipe than the Monroe Doctrine (1823), systematically questioned by AMLO when he states that it is unacceptable to continue with the same policies of two centuries ago in a world that has changed. There is much evidence of Washington’s arrogant attitude, but perhaps the best example today is its determination to economically asphyxiate and destabilize Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, simply because they are not subordinate to it. The recent measures towards Havana announced by the Biden administration are a small positive step, but in no way abolish the blockade, just a few of the additional punishments to the siege imposed by Trump. Not only that. Biden blatantly maintains the failed policy of attempted soft coup like the one on July 11, 2021, in which his embassy in Havana is an active protagonist. What is beyond doubt is that, whatever happens at the Los Angeles summit, it will be even clearer after it that if the US insists on acting as if LAC continues to be its backyard, its crisis of world leadership will be increasingly accentuated.

Source: La Pupilia Insomne, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English