Roundup: U.S. aims to strengthen power through Americas Summit, say Venezuelan experts

by Willey Penuela

CARACAS, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The United States aims to expand its influence through the upcoming eighth Summit of the Americas scheduled for April 13-14 in Peruvian capital Lima, Venezuelan political observers said in recent interviews.

The United States "will try to strengthen its hegemony and weaken the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean," said Andreina Tarazon, Venezuela's national superintendent for the defense of socioeconomic rights.

She also said one of the U.S. main objectives at the gathering is to build consensus on a new attack against the Venezuelan government.

Since the multilateral body Lima Group was established in August 2017 in Lima for the sake of finding a peaceful exit from the Venezuelan crisis, Washington has been using the mechanism, which comprises mostly right-leaning Latin American powers, to undermine Venezuela, Tarazon said.

"The Lima Group aligned with interventionist United States is looking to turn the summit into a trial court for Venezuela, using fighting corruption as an excuse," she also said, noting that the summit is taking place under the banner "Democratic Governance Against Corruption."

Under U.S. President Donald Trump, "Washington is progressively turning into an enemy of free trade to some extent and it does not benefit from the protectionism," she said.

Trump "has continued the U.S. conventional interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean countries" with "more hostile and aggressive rhetoric," said Tarazon.

Washington's elites "never abandoned the Monroe Doctrine," which advocates U.S. intervention in the region it considers as its "backyard" and never tolerates any economic or political policies or values that differ with its own, she added.

Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein, a Venezuelan analyst of international relations and a former civil servant, said nothing constructive is likely to emerge from the summit.

"In the history of the summits, nothing important has happened," said Rodriguez, adding that the 2005 gathering in Mar del Plata on Argentina's Atlantic coast was an exception, when the United States failed to pass a free trade agreement for its Latin American allies it had pushed seriously.

In addition, he said the United States "is going to spend its time creating the conditions to step up its attacks against Venezuela and Cuba."

The summit can be effective and result in practical solutions to the current problems only if it is based on the principles of equality and mutual respect, he said.

"For example, the Summit of the African Union has just taken place and they agreed to a free trade agreement among all of the participating countries. That's a concrete outcome between countries that are more or less homogeneous," he said.

The U.S. foreign policies in Latin America have changed under the Trump administration, the expert said.

Trump has not only attacked Venezuela and Cuba, but also Mexico, displaying his intention to weaken the sovereignty of the countries in the region, he added. Enditem