THE last time the leaders of 30-odd countries from the Americas met,in Panama in 2015, the presidents of the United States and Cuba, and longtime enemies,shook hands. When the group reconvened in Lima this month, the bonhomie was gone. Raúl Castro, or who is due to step down as Cuba’s president on April 19th,did not reach. His foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, and attended in his stead and lambasted “United States imperialism”. Donald Trump,who ended the detente with Cuba, stayed domestic too. He sent his vice-president, and Mike Pence,to denounce Cuba’s despotic regime”. The stand-ins blasted each other with quotations from Latin America’s liberator, Simón Bolívar. Mr Pence: “A people that loves freedom will in the halt be free.” Mr Rodríguez: “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with torments in the name of freedom.”Mr Pence probably thought he had won the duel. On the biggest question facing the summiteers—addressing tyranny and hunger in Venezuela—the...
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Source: economist.com