Tegucigalpa was on Wednesday the scenario where Latin America raised its voice. Among calls for unit, shared challenges and concrete proposals for integration, the IX Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) made it clear that the region does not want to remain a passive actor before the new global order.
At a time marked by the tariffs imposed by the US president, Donald Trump, the meeting held in Honduras served as a platform for leaders such as Claudia Sheinbaum, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro delineating a path to greater economic and political autonomy.
The regional appointment brought together eleven leaders from the 33 countries that make up the CELAC, including those of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Guyana and San Vicente and Las Grenadinas. The host, Xiomara Castro, opened the day with a strong criticism of the neoliberal model and the “new world economic order imposed by the US.”
Latin America, he insisted, “cannot continue walking separately while the world is reorganized without us.”
The summit, held in a context of growing fragmentation and commercial tension, the leaders arrived with the urgent challenge of raising a common strategy against 10% tariffs decreed by Washington – with even greater rates for Venezuela, Nicaragua and Guyana – and the growing mass deportation of migrants.
Sheinbaum summons economic summit
President Claudia Sheinbaum proposed to convene a ‘Summit for the economic well -being of Latin America and the Caribbean’ in response to the tariff war and in defense of greater regional economic integration.
He stressed that the region has everything to strengthen by itself: a young population of 663 million, a GDP of 6.6 billion dollars and abundant natural resources. “A united region is a stronger region,” he said.
Lee: Sheinbaum summons Summit for well -being in the midst of tariff war
The Mexican president also asked to address migration from a humanistic perspective, rejected the sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela, and supported a specific summit to address the situation in Haiti.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, focused his speech on the need to expand local currency trade. He urged to reactivate the ALADI payment system – the Latin American Integration Association, a regional agency – and leave behind the dependence of the dollar.
“The stronger and more united our economies are, the more protected we will be against unilateral actions,” he said, in clear allusion to US commercial policy.
Lula regretted that only 14% of exports in the region are carried out between CELAC countries and called to diversify and facilitate intra -regional trade. He also defended the integration of transport, energy and telecommunications networks to reduce costs and strengthen productive synergies.
In a bilateral meeting, Sheinbaum and Lula also agreed to strengthen the industrial relationship between Mexico and Brazil through periodic meetings between their governments and productive sectors. The objective: articulate a common response to the global commercial crisis from the two largest regional economies.
Petro assumes Celac and Haiti asks for “active solidarity”
The Colombian ruler, Gustavo Petro, who assumed the pro tempore presidency of the CELAC, called that the region “joining, does not act alone” and connects to the world. He proposed to make the organism a “own” that dialogue with humanity from peace and knowledge.
“Latin America and the Caribbean is life, does not export death, exports the solution to global warming,” he said.
On the part of Haiti, the representative of the Presidential Transition Council, Leslie Voltaire, asked the CELAC for an “active solidarity” before the serious security crisis that his country is going through, dominated in part by armed bands.
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He accused international mafias of maintaining violence and requested concrete support in security, medical assistance and technology. He also proposed a specific regional conference on Haitian stabilization.
Voices against tariffs and bets on unity
During the day, the president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, warned about “the weakening of the international system based on rules” and defended respect for international law as a governing principle.
Luis Arce, from Bolivia, rejected the criminalization of migration and the United States unilateral measures, and asked to advance in the use of local currencies, a regional stabilization and more intra -regional trade fund.
Nicolás Maduro, in an intervention from Caracas by videoconference, warned before the leaders gathered in Tegucigalpa on the “end of Western globalization” as a consequence of the commercial war.
In representation of Cuba, its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, called to face together what he described as an “aggressive behavior” by Trump. He criticized mass deportations and the use of economic blackmail as a form of pressure against the region.
Nicaragua, absent at the presidential level, also rejected American tariffs, which in their case reach 18%, and asked to convene an urgent session of the CELAC to analyze its effects.
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President Xiomara Castro also took advantage of her speech to express her solidarity with the Dominican Republic for the accident at the Jet Set disco, which left more than a hundred victims. “We deeply regret this tragedy,” he said.
The Summit concluded with the announcement that the Colombian city of Santa Marta will host on November 9 and 10 the IV Celac-EU Summit, a key meeting in which the Latin American voice will be sought to articulate in front of Europe in an increasingly polarized global context.
With EFE information
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