An Update from Heather Cox Richardson
Since taking office, the Biden administration has focused on using diplomacy in foreign affairs and has used it to solve global issues by strengthening regional partnerships.
On Friday, President Biden hosted the first leaders’ summit for the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). Biden announced the creation of APEP in June 2022 to establish a forum positioned to improve the economies of countries in the western hemisphere, with the idea that stronger economies will be able to address economic inequality, bolster supply chains, and “restore faith in democracy by delivering for working people across the region.”
APEP is also designed to strengthen the Los Angeles Declaration for Migration and Protection that established a responsibility-sharing approach to addressing this era’s historic migration flows. Rather than working solely on getting Congress to pass legislation to fix the border—as Biden has urged since the beginning of his term—the administration has focused on the prosperity and security of the countries from which migrants come, so that they feel less pressure to leave.
The administration has worked hard to develop that strategy. Vice President Kamala Harris took the lead in “diplomatic efforts to address root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras,” and in July 2021 she released a report on strategies to slow migration from the region. In June 2022, at the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, the administration helped to bring to reality a long-standing realization among many countries that migration must be addressed on a regional level rather than with patchwork attempts by individual nations. That’s when the U.S. got 21 governments to sign on to “a comprehensive response to irregular migration and forced displacement in the Western Hemisphere,” known as the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection.
The Biden administration has emphasized that it wants to work with the region, not dictate to it, and the leaders of APEP are working with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to fund improvements to infrastructure and train skilled workers and entrepreneurs. The IDB is an international financial institution, owned by 48 member states and headquartered in Washington, D.C., that provides development financing for Latin American and Caribbean countries.
A senior administration official on a background call on Friday noted that “the APEP countries are collectively hosting the majority of refugees and migrants in the Western Hemisphere” and that “each has been significantly impacted by the historic flows in recent years.” The official said that President Biden deeply appreciates how regional partners have offered new legal status to millions of people displaced in the western hemisphere, and noted that APEP is part of stepping up to support those countries and create incentives for other countries to do the same.
“The bottom line is that President Biden believes that targeted economic investment in top refugee and migrant host countries is critical to stabilizing migration flows,” the official said.