A group of Democratic congressmen, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Rep. New York) and an envoy from the office of Bernie Sanders (Vermont senator and former presidential primary candidate), will visit Latin America this month to discuss ways to improve United States relations with the continent. The tour, scheduled from August 14 to 21, includes, as EL PAÍS has learned, three countries: Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The three of them form a triangle of the new wave of the left that has recently returned to take over the command of some of the powers in the region.
On the agenda, the content of which is not yet public, meetings are expected with presidents Lula da Silva, Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro, as well as with parliamentary representatives and civil society organizations, which work, according to the delegation in a joint statement , “on the front line of ecological transitions, democratic transformations and peace negotiations in the countries”. The goal is to “advance a relationship between the United States and Latin America based on mutual respect, understanding, and a commitment to cooperation.”
Ocasio-Cortez, a reference to the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and Misty Rebik, Sanders’ chief of staff (sent on behalf of the 81-year-old veteran senator), will be accompanied by four congressmen: Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar (both from Texas ), Nydia Velázquez (New York) and Maxwell Frost, a Latino from Florida, and, at 26, the youngest in the House of Representatives. Castro, an American of Mexican origin, is a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, which belongs to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of Congress. He recently led the sending of a letter to the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to put pressure on the president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, for the human rights violations in her country. Casar, who is in his first term, participates in the Progressive Caucus, while Velázquez became the first Puerto Rican woman in Congress in 1993.
“The United States shares critical challenges with our friends in Latin America, but too often we have prioritized corporate interests or great-power competition in our historic engagement with the region,” Sanders considers. “I hope this delegation helps present a new face to the hemisphere, one based on commitment to the good of people and the planet.”
The environment is one of the three priorities – along with “peace and democracy” – on the agenda of the trip, sponsored by the Center for Research in Economics and Politics (CEPR is its acronym in English), analysis laboratory based in Washington. The United States is the most polluting country in the American continent. Brazil, the first port of call, will host the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém in November 2025.
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The Democratic delegation is concerned that the rainforest is approaching a “tipping point after which it would degrade into a savannah.” They are interested in contacts with “indigenous peoples who protect their ancestral lands, to the ministries of the Environment that promote agreements on resource extraction, through those of the Economy, which develop climate mitigation projects,” they stress in the joint statement.
defense of democracy
The defense of democracy is another of the ideals that guides the trip. For the group of congressmen, the “twin” insurrections in the Capitol, on January 6, 2021, and in Brasilia (on January 8) “made it clear that the fate of democracy in the United States is closely linked to that of their southern neighbors. “(Our) democracies”, they consider, “not only share the challenge of defending their institutions from political violence, misinformation and other forms of anti-democratic intervention; they also share the challenge of restoring confidence in the ability of those institutions to meet the fundamental needs of citizens.”
Ocasio-Cortez highlights another objective of the trip: to delve into how to “confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies.” “It is time to realign the relationship of the United States with Latin America”, considers the charismatic congresswoman. “The United States needs to publicly acknowledge the damage it has done through interventionist and extractive policies, and chart a new course based on trust and mutual respect.”
The third priority —as envoys from the country with the most powerful army on the continent, which in the past has aggravated some of these violent processes— focuses on the ongoing peace processes in the region, to, according to the joint statement, “learn about the search for a lasting peace, from the public efforts to maintain the memory of the dead and disappeared, to the multilateral negotiations for the demobilization of the armed groups”.
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