Why the Summit of the Americas is better off without Trump

While some heads of state attending the eighth Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru are disappointed that President Trump won’t be attending, others are breathing a sigh of relief.

The summit begins Friday and Vice President Mike Pence will attend.The U.S. president’s absence will hopefully not detract or distract from the serious work that needs to be done. Indeed, some argue the absence of the American president may permit the presidents and prime ministers who are there to concentrate on more urgent problems than relations with the colossus of the North. 

{mosads}The stakes are high for the Organization of American States (OAS) under whose auspices these triennial meetings are organized, for the member states and for the region’s commitment to good government and democracy as a pre-condition to full participation in the region’s multilateral institutions. The theme of the summit is “Democratic Governance Against Corruption.” This focus could not be more appropriate or timely.

Crime and corruption remain at the heart of the challenges to development and good government in the Americas. The Lava Jato and Oderbrecht scandals in Brazil and the Panama Papers scandal in Panama are the most notorious but by no means the only corruption investigations worthy of note. Unfortunately, the record of recent summits in forging plans of action or even agreeing to a common vision of the problems to be addressed is not encouraging. The last two Summits of the Americas in fact adjourned without final declarations.

Citizens in all of the American republics should hope that a real commitment to beating back corruption will emerge from this meeting. It is important that this commitment be understood as an expression of the region’s determination to roll back the sort of criminal activity that undermines the public’s faith in national institutions and, ultimately, in democracy itself. 

Polls in much of Latin America illustrate public frustration with political leadership. They have good reason to be unhappy. In Brazil alone hundreds have been indicted and some of the country’s most prominent business leaders and politicians are now behind bars. Former President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva was jailed this week and the former president of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, was forced to resign last month. This may suggest that official impunity may be waning. That is certainly positive — but not sufficient. 

In some places, official corruption and transnational criminal organizations threaten the viability of entire governments and fuel other equally intractable problems. In the northern triad of Central America, gang violence, drug smuggling and human trafficking are draining already poor countries of scarce resources, discouraging foreign direct investment, undermining elected governments and fueling a refugee crisis that is in turn aggravating a nativist strain in the U.S., the destination of choice among the vast majority of those fleeing violence. 

The situation in Venezuela is the most egregious. There, corruption and incompetence, frequently hiding behind a fig leaf of revolutionary rhetoric, have essentially bankrupted what should be the richest country in South America. The consequences have been disastrous by any measure.

More than a million Venezuelans, by most estimates, have fled a humanitarian crisis and are becoming a burden on the country’s neighbors. Colombia and Brazil have even had to dispatch troops to the borders. Confidence in Venezuela’s Maduro government has collapsed along with the country’s currency and oil production. In an effort to hold onto power, the regime has withdrawn into a defiant authoritarianism while much of the populace goes hungry.

The summit offers the region an opportunity to re-establish the collective commitment to the rule of law and democratic governance. Many governments around the Americas, most notably those that comprise the Lima Group, tacitly recognize the urgency of the challenges the region is facing. Some are already trying to revive the principle of collective action. We should all hope the more recalcitrant understand that success in peacefully addressing these issues will be essential to securing a peaceful and prosperous hemisphere.

The U.S. has a big stake in the summit, but we cannot impose solutions. We have more free trade agreements with the countries of Latin America than with any other region and 42 percent of our manufacturing exports are sold to countries in the Western Hemisphere. Cooperation between and among the governments of the region is also important as we struggle with the problems of drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Vice President Pence will undoubtedly make these points on behalf of President Trump. That said, if a practicable plan of action for confronting official corruption and the erosion of confidence in national institutions emerges from the conversations between and among the countries of the Caribbean, Central and South America, we will all be better off going forward.

Patrick Duddy is the director of Duke University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Duddy previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and as deputy assistant secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere.