The United States hosted the Ninth Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on June 6-10, 2022. The Summits of the Americas, held roughly every three years since 1994, serve as opportunities for the Western Hemisphere's heads of government to engage directly with one another and address issues of collective concern. The official theme of the summit was "Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future." However, much of the media attention in the lead-up to the meeting focused on which leaders would attend. As the summit was about to start, the Biden Administration announced the authoritarian governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela would be excluded, leading Mexico and a few other countries to send lower-level delegations and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to boycott the meeting. Ultimately, 23 of the hemisphere's 35 heads of government participated in the summit, along with representatives of eight other countries. Three official stakeholder forums occurred alongside the summit, bringing together civil society, youth, and private sector representatives to discuss regional challenges and interact with the assembled leaders.
Many in Congress have expressed interest in the Los Angeles summit and in efforts to strengthen hemispheric ties. The Senate adopted a resolution (S.Res. 120) recognizing the summit and reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the hemisphere; the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to assess the prospects for enhanced cooperation; and Members of both houses, including the Speaker, traveled to Los Angeles to observe the proceedings and meet with regional leaders. Some Members also introduced measures in advance of the summit that would seek to enhance economic ties (S.Res. 661 and H.R. 7935), support democratic governance (S. 4285), and increase energy security (H.R. 7934) in the hemisphere. Moving forward, Congress may consider those measures and/or other legislation, including appropriations, to support the multilateral commitments and U.S. policy initiatives announced in Los Angeles.
The heads of government attending the summit approved five official political commitments related to health, climate change, clean energy, digital transformation, and democratic governance. In addition to signing onto those commitments, the Biden Administration negotiated a side agreement on migration and announced a number of other policy initiatives, some of which lacked details or funding mechanisms.
Pandemic Response and Recovery
The heads of government attending the summit agreed to develop an Action Plan on Health and Resilience in the Americas, which is to be implemented by 2030. The action plan is intended to address the effects of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and strengthen the capacity and resilience of the region's health systems to address future infectious disease outbreaks and other health challenges. The Biden Administration announced several initiatives to support implementation of the action plan, including the Americas Health Corps—a partnership with the Pan American Health Organization to provide training to 500,000 health workers in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next five years. The Administration also intends to expand global health security programs in the region with funds included in its FY2023 foreign assistance budget request.
To address the economic impact of the pandemic, President Biden announced a new Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity. Under the new framework, the Administration intends to engage with partners in the hemisphere on efforts to reinvigorate the Inter-American Development Bank and other regional economic organizations to mobilize increased investment, establish more resilient supply chains, improve economic and social inclusion, and facilitate regional trade while advancing labor and environmental standards. The Administration also announced new commitments to address rising levels of food insecurity in the region, including $331 million of humanitarian assistance and a joint declaration with the hemisphere's top agricultural producers pledging to take action to maximize food supplies.
Climate Action
In Los Angeles, the hemisphere's leaders agreed to undertake various domestic and cooperative actions to combat climate change by conserving and restoring ecosystems and accelerating the transition to renewable energy. However, the final commitments lacked many of the more concrete goals outlined in the original drafts, such as developing national plans to achieve net-zero deforestation by 2030 or ending public financing for new unabated coal power generation by the end of 2022. The Biden Administration announced several measures to support the region's climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, including a new U.S.-Caribbean Partnership to Address the Climate Crisis 2030 (PACC 2030). The PACC 2030 initiative seeks to strengthen energy security and promote climate resilience in the region by improving access to development financing, facilitating clean energy project development, enhancing local capacity, and deepening U.S. collaboration with Caribbean partners.
Democracy Promotion
The Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance, adopted at the summit, includes a range of commitments to promote democracy, good governance, and human rights in the region. Many of the more ambitious elements of the original draft—such as commitments to provide standing invitations for Organization of American States electoral observation missions and to establish a regional mechanism to evaluate emerging threats to democracy—were not included in the final action plan. The Administration intends to support implementation of the action plan with ongoing foreign assistance programs as well as some new commitments, including $42 million to protect and defend civic space in Central America and $75 million over three years (contingent on congressional appropriations) to support 300 community-based civil society organizations across the hemisphere.
Migration Management
In addition to concluding the formal summit commitments, the Administration negotiated the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection with 20 other Western Hemisphere countries. The declaration recognizes irregular migration management as a shared responsibility and seeks to bolster regional efforts to improve border controls, create legal migration and protection pathways, support migrants and host communities, and coordinate responses to mass migration movements. To those ends, several of the signatory countries announced commitments to regularize certain unauthorized populations and to implement or expand temporary worker programs. The Administration announced $314 million of humanitarian assistance to support vulnerable migrants, a commitment to resettle 20,000 refugees from the region in FY2023-FY2024, and the resumption of family reunification parole programs for Haitians and Cubans, among other measures.