News Analysis: Pressure mounts for U.S. to steer OAS summit

New hurdles loomed large this week, as the United States stepped up efforts to guarantee that its poor ties with Latin American countries get fine-tuned at an upcoming summit of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Panama.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa was even mulling boycotting the April 10-11 summit over Washington's "lack of respect" for the region, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Wednesday, though a day later he confirmed that the head of state would attend.

A U.S. government budget of 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 allegedly for the promotion of causes like freedom of the press in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua was just a case in point, said Patino, insisting that Uncle Sam stop making such "ridiculous proposals" if it wanted to have a "friendly" summit of the Americas.

In the past three months, the U.S. has been devoted to normalizing its long-ruptured relations with Cuba and ending its decades of absence at the summit, but so far to no avail.

The immediate reopening of embassies in both countries was reportedly top on the agenda and widely thought to be a shot in the arm for the U.S. to revitalize its leadership status in the region.

To speed up the rapprochement, the U.S. Tuesday removed sanctions against nearly five dozen shipping companies, trading firms and individuals that had been blacklisted for links to Cuba.

However, the goodwill gesture was soon revealed to be an empty one as Havana said Wednesday through state daily Granma that many of the companies were closed, several of the ships had sunk, and four of the people were dead.

"The blockade against Cuba remains intact, continues to affect more than 11 million Cubans and thousands of our country's companies and institutions, and continues to punish...third countries" that conduct business with Cuba, according to an editorial of the paper.

Meanwhile, small shareholders have kept on flocking to the island country, with an eye on stirring the waters and securing their own interests in the continental game with a global reach.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, visited Cuba in tandem in recent days.

Even Japan is to send its top diplomat to Havana in early April, and French President Francois Hollande will arrive in May, ostensibly to help settle Cuba's debt issues with the Paris Club.

The constellation has gained intricacy, enhancing the bilateral mathematics to a conundrum hard to be fathomed, let alone cracked as soon as the U.S. expected.

On the other line of its battle to regain supremacy in Latin America, the U.S. had to bear a slap in the face, too.

Venezuela has managed to guarantee unanimous regional support and international sympathy, after the U.S. declared it a security threat to Washington and imposed sanctions on its high-level officials on charges of human rights violations.8 On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked the Group of 77 and China, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Non-Aligned Movement for backing Caracas in the head-on confrontation.

The recent theatrics out of Washington was ill advised, since it set out to punish Venezuela, but ended up offending its regional allies as well, especially right before a highly anticipated reunion that all involved want to go well.

As more tough threads become intertwined prior to the OAS summit, the U.S. is expected to nimbly show the trick up its sleeve to meet the challenge that may otherwise derail the gathering in Panama, and cash in on the possible achievements to buttress its political needs at home and rectify its diplomatic alignment in a timely manner. Endi