I can’t decide which part of the Summit of the Americas is funnier — the dust-up over which Latin American countries President Biden would permit to attend or Biden’s dramatic plan for economic improvement in Latin America.
The brouhaha over which countries would be allowed to attend involved Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Biden decided that he didn’t want those three countries to attend the meeting, which is being held in Los Angeles. I guess he figured that they might threaten to turn the United States more Red, given their Cold War communist proclivities.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
But not inviting those three countries to participate in a summit on Latin America met with disapproval by countries who were invited and who were expected to attend. For example, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, decided to boycott the summit, which obviously left a big hole in a conference whose principal focus is on Latin America.
According to Politico, the White House planned to advocate a “new and ambitious economic agenda” at the summit. According to an article in the New York Times, Biden opened the 3-day summit “by promising leaders from Latin America that the United States was committed to helping the region combat crime, corruption and its economic struggles.”
What was the gist of Biden’s dramatic proposal? He urged Latin American governments in the hemisphere to invest in workers and the middle class.
Wow! Whoop de doo! What a big idea! Well, except for one thing: Biden’s economic plan sure sounds socialist to me. Too bad Biden excluded the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the summit. I’ll bet they could have taught him a few things about government investments in workers and the middle class. I wonder if Biden took a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital with him to the summit or just a copy of the Communist Manifesto.
According to Politico, the White House made it clear that Biden’s economic plan would not include “new trade agreements,” which left Latin American countries wanting more economic access to the restricted markets of a nation that prides itself for its purported devotion to “free enterprise’ and a “free-market” economy.”
Of course, it goes without saying that the very idea of an economic summit involving political leaders is itself socialist nonsense. It is based on the socialist concept of central planning — a concept that is based on public officials centrally planning people’s economic activities. As the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, central planning always results in “planned chaos.” What better term to describe Latin America’s longtime economic plight or, for that matter, the decades-old immigration crisis here in the United States?
The United States should be leading Latin America and the rest of the world out of the socialist morass. Cancel all future summits and reject all socialism. What the United States should do instead is unilaterally lift all of its trade and travel restrictions on Latin American (and other) countries.
In other words, the solution is to adopt the libertarian concept of open borders — the free movements of goods, services, and people into and out of the United States. No trade agreements. No trade or travel restrictions. No immigration controls. No sanctions. No embargoes. No summits. Just total free trade and open immigration, unilaterally. If other countries wish to follow suit, great. If they don’t, that’s their business. The United States should lead the world by example to economic liberty, prosperity, and harmony.
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