墨西哥城-为期一周的美洲峰会定于6月8日在洛杉矶举行，对西半球来说是一件大事，来自北美、中美、南美和加勒比海地区的领导人将齐聚一堂。

但美国总统拜登(Joe Biden)主持这一高规格会议的机会遇到了一些重大问题，这些问题可能会破坏会议，以及拜登重申美国在该地区领导地位的努力。

一些领导人威胁要抵制这次峰会，因为美国决定不邀请委内瑞拉和尼加拉瓜政府。如果没有这些领导人的参与，像一个区域性的移民协议、应对气候变化的努力以及新冠肺炎的经济和社会影响等议程项目都将受到质疑。

墨西哥总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔(Andrés Manuel López Obrador)周五重申，“如果不是所有国家都受到邀请，我就不会出席。”。他一再表示，该地区的所有国家都必须受到邀请，包括华盛顿认为是独裁国家并受到美国制裁的国家——古巴、委内瑞拉和尼加拉瓜。

诸如此类的批评使得拜登政府急于增加出席人数，包括派遣副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯、第一夫人吉尔·拜登博士以及峰会的特别顾问、前民主党参议员克里斯·多德。

“是美洲峰会还是美洲之友峰会?因为如果把那些国家排除在外，他们是哪个洲的?他们不是从美洲来的吗?”洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔，他的首字母被称为AMLO，在周五的新闻发布会上补充道。

失去世界第15大经济体、该地区最重要的参与者之一墨西哥的领导人，将是一个巨大的打击。包括拜登的朋友、前参议院同事多德在内的美国官员一直在与AMLO政府接洽，以确保拜登出席。

但是AMLO并不孤单。玻利维亚、安提瓜和巴布达以及危地马拉的领导人已经宣布他们不会出席。包括智利和阿根廷在内的其他国家也批评了这种做法。

就连洪都拉斯也威胁不出席，该国历史上第一位左倾女总统受到了拜登政府的极大关注。

“只有在美洲所有国家都被毫无例外地邀请的情况下，我才会参加峰会，”总统Xiomara Castro周六在推特上说。

这条底线是在卡斯特罗与副总统哈里斯通话几小时后划定的。拜登任命哈里斯监督政府解决中美洲移民问题的努力，哈里斯一直寻求在卡斯特罗获得盟友——参加她的1月就职典礼，并成为卡斯特罗上任后会见的第一位外国领导人。

虽然美国在周五的电话中没有提到峰会，但卡斯特罗在此后不久就明确表示反对，这对政府来说是另一个令人不安的迹象。

曾担任美国驻巴西、哥伦比亚和秘鲁大使的迈克尔·麦金利(Michael McKinley)在年写道，“无论对峰会的广泛抵制最终是否成为现实，美国与地区关系中的压力都将暴露在令人不快的光线下。”一篇评论文章为美国和平研究所工作。

“围绕峰会的不确定性，”他补充说，“对美国来说是一个警钟。”

挽救出席人数可能是美国最近对古巴和委内瑞拉政策逆转的原因之一。拜登政府官员否认了这种情况，但一名加勒比海国家的高级官员表示，他们在让14个岛国中的13个回复“是的，据路透社报道。周五，美国财政部延长了石油公司雪佛龙(Chevron)在委内瑞拉继续运营的许可，但没有允许恢复石油出口，但这是对尼古拉斯·马杜罗(Nicolás Maduro)政府的又一个善意姿态。

但美国周四明确表示，不会邀请委内瑞拉或尼加拉瓜政府，负责协调峰会的美国最高外交官凯文·奥莱利(Kevin O'Reilly)说。奥莱利说，美国仍然不承认马杜罗的合法性，但美国是否会邀请反对派领导人胡安·瓜伊多(Juan Guaidó)前往委内瑞拉，美国承认他是委内瑞拉的“临时总统”。

虽然这些排除被证实，多德和其他人是否能说服AMLO来仍然是一个开放的问题。这位墨西哥民粹主义总统表示，他可能会派外交部长马塞洛·埃布拉德代替他，并为他敞开大门，称赞拜登是一个“好人，他没有铁石心肠”

但是多德的努力似乎在其他地方得到了回报——据巴西报纸O Globo报道，在周二会见多德后，该地区另一个主要大国巴西的极右翼总统也出席了会议。这将是拜登首次与雅伊尔·博索纳罗交谈，他对环境和巴西民主制度的攻击以及他与唐纳德·特朗普的密切关系已经冷却了与白宫的关系。

2022年5月19日，美国第一夫人吉尔·拜登、厄瓜多尔总统吉列尔莫·拉索和厄瓜多尔第一夫人玛丽亚·德·卢尔德·阿尔西瓦尔·德·拉索在厄瓜多尔基多的卡龙代莱宫向记者挥手致意。

艾琳·沙夫，路透社记者

除了多德，奥巴马政府还派遣第一夫人吉尔·拜登(Jill Biden)本月对该地区进行了为期六天的友好访问。拜登将与总统一起出席峰会，他访问了厄瓜多尔、哥斯达黎加和巴拿马，并打消了人们对美国在每个国家促进投资和援助的中途抵制的担忧。

“我不担心。我认为他们会来的，”她在5月23日离开哥斯达黎加圣何塞时告诉记者。

奥赖利周四告诉参议院，白宫尚未就邀请古巴做出决定——在政府扭转特朗普的强硬政策一周半后。白宫宣布，飞往哈瓦那以外城市的航班将恢复，人与人之间的交流将被允许，汇款将不再受到限制，以及其他一些措施，这些措施朝着拜登的老上司巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)领导下的和解迈进，但没有达到这一水平。

但不管美国的邀请，古巴总统米格尔·迪亚斯-卡内尔周三宣布，“在任何情况下”他都不会出席，指责美国“密集努力和”...残酷的压力瓦解了该地区大多数国家要求首脑会议具有包容性的正义和坚定的要求。”

邀请名单也招致了拜登自己政党的批评。由众议院外交事务委员会主席格雷戈里·米克斯领导的15名众议院民主党人星期四写信给拜登，对这一决定表示“关注”。

他们在信中写道:“我们强烈认为，将一些国家排除在外可能会危及整个地区的未来关系，并使你的政府在《重建更美好的世界》(Build Back Better World)中推出的一些雄心勃勃的政策提案面临风险。”。

国会山的其他人则持相反的观点，参议院西半球小组委员会的最高共和党参议员马尔科·卢比奥周四表示，美国不应该受到AMLO或其他国家的“欺负”，也不应该邀请独裁者。

Amid boycotts, US scrambling to make Summit of the Americas a success

MEXICO CITY --The week-long Summit of the Americas, slated to start June 8 in Los Angeles, is a big deal for the Western Hemisphere -- bringing together leaders from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.

But President Joe Biden's opportunity to host the high-profile gathering is running into some major problems that threaten to undermine the meetings -- and Biden's push to reassert U.S. leadership in the region.

Several leaders are threatening to boycott the summit because the U.S. has decided to not invite the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua. And without these leaders' participation, agenda items like a region-wide agreement on migration and efforts to combat climate change and the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 are in doubt.

"If all of the countries are not invited, I am not going to attend," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated Friday. He's repeatedly said all of the region's countries must be invited, including those that Washington considers authoritarian and are under U.S. sanctions -- Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Criticism like that has had the Biden administration scrambling to shore up attendance, including by dispatching Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Dr. Jill Biden, and a special adviser for the summit, former Democratic senator Chris Dodd.

"Is it going to be the Summit of the Americas or the Summit of the Friends of America? Because if those countries are excluded, what continent are they from? Are they not from the Americas?" López Obrador, known by his initials as AMLO, added during a press conference Friday.

Losing the leader of Mexico, the 15th largest economy in the world and one of the region's most important players, would be a big blow. U.S. officials, including Dodd, Biden's friend and former Senate colleague, have been talking to AMLO's government to secure his attendance.

But AMLO is not alone. The leaders of Bolivia, Antigua and Barbuda, and Guatemala have announced they will not attend. And others, including in Chile and Argentina, have criticized the snubs.

Even Honduras, whose left-leaning female president -- the first in the nation's history -- has been showered with attention by the Biden administration, has threatened to not attend.

"I will attend the summit only if all of the countries in the Americas are invited without exception," President Xiomara Castro tweeted Saturday.

That line in the sand was drawn just hours after Castro spoke with Vice President Harris. Harris, who Biden tapped to oversee the administration's efforts to address migration from Central America, has sought to secure an ally in Castro -- attending her inauguration in January and becoming the first foreign leader Castro met with after taking office.

While the U.S. readout of their Friday call made no mention of the summit, that Castro voiced clear opposition so shortly after is another troubling sign for the administration.

"Whether or not a widespread boycott of the summit ultimately materializes, the stresses in U.S-regional relations will have been exposed in an unflattering light," Michael McKinley, who served as U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, wrote inan opinion piecefor the U.S. Institute of Peace.

"The uncertainties surrounding the summit," he added, "are a wake-up call for the United States."

Salvaging attendance could be one reason for those recent reversals in U.S. policy toward Cuba and Venezuela. Biden administration officials have denied that was the case, but a senior Caribbean-nation official said they made a difference in getting 13 of the 14 island nations to RSVP yes,according to Reuters. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury extended the oil company Chevron's license to keep operating in Venezuela, stopping short of allowing the resumption of oil exports, but another good will gesture to Nicolás Maduro's government.

But the U.S. made clear Thursday -- it is not inviting the governments of Venezuela or Nicaragua, per Kevin O'Reilly, the top U.S. diplomat coordinating the summit. O'Reilly said the U.S. still doesn't recognize Maduro's legitimacy, but deferred to the White House on whether the U.S. would invite opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela's "interim president."

While those exclusions were confirmed, whether Dodd and others can convince AMLO to come anyway is still an open question. The Mexican populist president, who's said he may send his Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in his place, left the door open -- praising Biden as a "good person, he doesn't have a hardened heart."

But Dodd's efforts appear to have paid off elsewhere -- after meeting Dodd on Tuesday, the far-right president of Brazil, another of the region's major powers, is attending, per Brazilian newspaper O Globo. It will be the first time Biden even speaks to Jair Bolsonaro, whose attacks on the environment and Brazil's democratic institutions -- and his close ties to Donald Trump -- have cooled relations with the White House.

In addition to Dodd, the administration deployed first lady Jill Biden on a six-day goodwill tour through the region this month. Biden, who will attend the summit with the president, visited Ecuador, Costa Rica and Panama -- and batted away concerns about a boycott in between stops promoting U.S. investment and assistance in each country.

"I'm not worried. I think that they'll come," she told reporters as she departed San Jose, Costa Rica, on May 23.

O'Reilly told the Senate Thursday that the White House has not made a decision yet about inviting Cuba -- a week and a half after the administration reversed Trump's hardline policies. The White House announced flights to cities beyond Havana will resume, people-to-people exchanges will be permitted, and remittances will no longer be capped, among other steps that moved toward, but fell short of the rapprochement under Biden's old boss, Barack Obama.

But regardless of a U.S. invite, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced Wednesday that "under no circumstances" will he attend, accusing the U.S. of "intensive efforts and ... brutal pressures to demobilize the just and firm claims of the majority of the countries of the region demanding that the Summit should be inclusive."

The invitation list is also drawing criticism from Biden's own party. Fifteen House Democrats, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Gregory Meeks, wrote to Biden Thursday expressing "concern" about the decision.

"We feel strongly that excluding countries could jeopardize future relations throughout the region and put some of the ambitious policy proposals your administration launched under Build Back Better World at risk," they wrote in their letter.

Others on Capitol Hill have argued in the opposite direction-- with Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate's subcommittee for the Western Hemisphere, saying Thursday that the U.S. should not be "bullied" by AMLO or others and should not invite dictators.