A commission of members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus recently joined other progressive lawmakers from North, Central, and South America for the first Panamerican Congress. The meeting was held from August 2 to 5 in Bogotá, Colombia, and brought together forty progressive politicians from across two continents to discuss challenges that the hemisphere faces and facilitate intercontinental dialogue.
Progressive representatives from Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States met to discuss the shared problems of climate change, attacks on democracy, and violent conflict. The U.S. delegation to the first congress was made up of Representatives Greg Casar, Democrat of Texas, and Delia Ramírez and Jesús “Chuy” García, Democrats of Illinois.
“The challenges facing participating countries—from democratic fragility and crippling debt to displacement and climate change—are deeply interconnected and fundamentally regional,” García tells The Progressive. “I joined the Panamerican Congress as a U.S. delegate because, now more than ever, I believe our responses must be coordinated, too—forged in solidarity and dedicated to transparency and mutual respect.”
For their counterparts in Latin America, the participation of members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is significant.
“[The United States Represenatives] have a link with the region,” Sonia Gutiérrez, a progressive Guatemalan congressional representative with the Winaq’ party who also participated in the congress, tells The Progressive. “We feel confident and agree on the approaches to the need to strengthen migration and security policies, to generate opportunities for our regions, and with the construction of a more democratic policy. These are the issues that are familiar to us in the region.”
The formation of the congress stems from meetings during a U.S. delegation’s visit to Colombia, Chile, and Brazil in August 2023. The delegation was led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who was joined by Representatives Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar, both Democrats of Texas, and Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida. The Center For Economic Policy and Research, a progressive think tank, funded the visit.
The delegation sought to establish an alternative to current U.S. relations with the region, which have long been marked by the destructive Monroe Doctrine, a policy used to justify U.S. interventions and imperialism in Latin America. There remains a long way to go to establishing more equitable relations, as the congress was held ahead of a series of diplomatic spats between the Biden Administration and progressive governments throughout the region.
Just weeks after the congress, on August 27, Mexico announced it was pausing diplomatic relations with the United States and Canada after both countries raised criticisms about proposed judicial reforms by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The following day, the administration of Xiomara Castro in Honduras announced that it would not renew extradition treaties with the United States after Washington’s ambassador expressed concern about a meeting between Honduran and Venezuelan officials.
But these recent diplomatic challenges are nothing when compared with the long history of U.S. military and diplomatic interventions in the region, which the United States has long considered its “backyard.” These coups d’état, political manipulations, and actions of paternalist protectionism were driven by U.S. hegemony and the Monroe Doctrine, which marked its 200th anniversary in 2023 and was the impetus for the August 2023 Congressional delegation to the region.
While the Panamerican Congress won’t change U.S. policy toward Latin America any time soon, it represents a step in the right direction of joining the region in addressing shared problems.
“The fact that my colleagues and I joined does not mean U.S. policy will change from one day to the next,” García says. “We were joining as members who are ourselves sometimes critical of U.S. policy in the region.”
He adds, “But the progressive voices for change and transparency in our policy towards the Western Hemisphere are finally getting more traction in the U.S. Congress.”
As progressive politicians begin collaborations across borders, authoritarianism and populism have taken root throughout the region, undermining the democratic order.
There are also direct efforts from Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and Christian supremacist networks to support authoritarian and anti-democratic leaders. The far right has rallied around leaders such as El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (whose supporters launched an attempted coup d’état in January 2023), and Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei.
Most recently, far-right groups attempted to overturn the results of the presidential election in Guatemala. Events like the Panamerican Congress represent a way to uphold the democratic order through regional solidarity.
“It is a good opportunity to strengthen ties of solidarity and cooperation in our society, which is threatened by fascism, authoritarianism, and [general] anti-human rights movements that have been expanding in our region,” Gutiérrez says. “In the particular case of Guatemala, the creation of these spaces is important precisely to have support and backing in the face of any attempt to threaten democracy.”
The second Panamerican Congress is already in the works for next year, according to Gutiérrez. She says the next congress is planned to take place in Mexico City.
“It was great to already see enthusiasm for the next Panamerican Congress,” García says. “But open conversation among delegates also laid the foundation for continuing dialogue that helps us be responsive to threats as they emerge, and to work in closer collaboration on policy proposals related to this year’s conversations.”