RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, today opened the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), in which more than a dozen leaders of the region are participating, with a call for the area to build something similar to the European Union (EU).
In his welcome message, the Mexican president stressed the need to “build something similar to the economic community that gave rise to the current European Union.”
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He pointed out that this ideal would be possible if agreements were reached on three fundamental issues: non-intervention and self-determination of peoples, cooperation for development, and mutual aid to combat inequality and discrimination.
With regard to economic and trade issues, the Mexican President proposed signing an agreement between the countries of the region and the United States and Canada to strengthen the continent’s domestic market, which, he said, “is in deficit with Europe and Asia”.
He stressed the importance of reactivating the economy of the countries of the region soon “to build in America what we consume” and emphasized that we have the labor force, in addition to good technological development. “We are a continent rich in natural resources, with wide cultural diversity, the distances between countries allow us to save on freight, and there is sufficient demand for goods,” he said.
However, he added that joint planning and the cooperation of organizations such as the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) are required to promote the economic community in the region.
He criticized the lack of support from the U.S. government. He stressed that since 1961, that country invested in 10 years 10 billion dollars (82 billion dollars at the current exchange rate) for the benefit of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.
“It has been the only important thing that has been done in terms of cooperation for development in our continent in more than half a century,” he said.
He affirmed that it is time to end “the lethargy” and propose a “new and vigorous” relationship, in addition to replacing the policy of “blockades and ill-treatment with the option of respecting each other.”
He said that it would be a gesture of “goodwill” if the United States were to donate vaccines against Covid-19 to countries in the region that have not had the possibility of protecting their people against the coronavirus.
Bolivian President Luis Arce was the first to speak (in alphabetical order) after López Obrador’s speech.
Arce criticized the Organization of American States (OAS) and called for an organization “that works with democratic practices and responds to reality by supporting countries’ sovereignty and without interference.”
“The OAS is useless,” said Arce, who praised Mexico’s work in favor of Celac as an organization maintaining that “financial interest cannot be above social interest”.
For his part, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel denounced the “opportunistic campaign of US interests against Cuba” and the fact that the US embargo had been tightened. At the same time, the country suffers “the conditions caused by the pandemic”. “U.S. interventionism is a flagrant violation of international rights,” Diaz-Canel said.