At Summit of Americas, Biden Pledges U.S. Help on Latin American Problems & More News Here

LOS ANGELES — President Biden opened the three-day Summit of the Americas on Wednesday by promising leaders from Latin America that the United States was dedicated to serving to the area fight crime, corruption and its financial struggles.

“These challenges affect all of us,” Mr. Biden informed the leaders on the opening ceremony of the summit, a gathering of nations of the Western Hemisphere meant to handle the area’s shared issues. “All of our nations have a responsibility to step up and ease the pressure people are feeling today.”

The United States is serving because the host to the ninth of these summits, which started in Miami in 1994. In temporary remarks, Mr. Biden delivered a model of his home financial pitch, urging governments within the hemisphere to put money into staff and the center class.

“What’s true in the United States is true in every country: Trickle-down economics does not work,” he mentioned, prompting some applause from the viewers contained in the Microsoft Theater close to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“When we invest in strengthening workers and the middle class,” he mentioned, “the poor have a ladder up, and those at the top do just fine. That’s how we can increase opportunity and decrease persistent inequity.”

Mr. Biden has hoped to make use of the summit to reassert U.S. management within the area and make diplomatic progress on a range of fronts, however his efforts are already dealing with extreme challenges.

His name to “get to work building the future this region deserves” was undercut days in the past when a number of of probably the most outstanding of its leaders declined to attend, citing the president’s refusal to ask the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

But Mr. Biden proceeded on Wednesday night time as if the snub had made no distinction, saying that the gathering in Los Angeles would announce what he referred to as “a groundbreaking, integrated new approach to managing migration and sharing responsibility across the hemisphere.”

White House officers have declined to supply specifics, however individuals aware of the hassle mentioned that governments had been working on pledges for every to just accept a sure quantity of refugees from the area.

Critics have questioned the worth of such a declaration with out the leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — which generate virtually 66 % of the migration to the United States border yearly — in attendance.

Administration officers mentioned that these nations supported the hassle, regardless of their absence. In his remarks, Mr. Biden mentioned the declaration “represents a mutual commitment to invest in regional solutions that enhance stability, increase opportunities for safe and orderly migration.”

The leaders will start formal conferences on Thursday.