In Ignoring Paraguay’s Peña, Biden Neglects U.S. Interests
By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
When former left-wing guerilla Gustavo Petro became President of Colombia, it took the Biden Administration barely one month to send a high-level U.S. delegation to Bogotá. But when center-right President Santiago Peña of Paraguay personally comes to the United States, President Joe Biden cannot be bothered to meet with him.
Coincidence? Unfortunately not. It’s just the latest instance of a toxic pattern in which President Biden appeases Marxists in our region and gives pro-American leaders the cold shoulder.
This approach makes no sense, of course. Latin America’s leftists are increasingly friendly to U.S. adversaries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. This obvious pattern of preference, enabled by the Biden Administration’s validation of those adversaries, is destabilizing the entire hemisphere — and jeopardizing millions of American lives in the process — by emboldening drug and human traffickers.
Moreover, the Latin American left has become explicitly anti-American and pro-Communist China. Petro, for example, recently accused the United States of being “the only country [in the United Nations Security Council] against a humanitarian solution for Gaza.” Last week, in Beijing, Petro signed an agreement declaring a strategic partnership between Bogotá and Beijing.
In contrast, President Peña — whom I had the honor to meet during his visit to the United States — has demonstrated staunch support for the American-led global coalition. He hosted Taiwanese Vice President William Lai during his inauguration and defended Taiwan in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly in September. He also restarted plans to follow in President Donald Trump’s footsteps and relocate the Paraguayan embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Finally, Peña seeks greater economic cooperation with the United States, including helping the United States relocate manufacturing from China to Latin America. Why would President Biden not reward and applaud these efforts with increased diplomatic partnership and economic aid?
The answer is that the Biden Administration’s own left-wing ideology makes common-sense foreign policy impossible. For years, stretching back to the Obama era, left-wing U.S. leaders have rewarded adversarial and totalitarian regimes with concessions and diplomatic visits, while they have chastised friendly democratic governments for emitting fossil fuels and lectured them on reproductive “rights” and transgenderism.
Far from unifying our hemisphere, this sows demoralization and division. Leaders in our region tell me that from their point of view, you are rewarded if you are America’s enemy more than if you are its ally. This is not how you increase regional stability. This is how you enable Marxists and drug and human traffickers to rise to power.
It’s time for a change of course. President Biden must start holding Latin America’s growing left-wing bloc — including Petro, Brazil’s Lula, Mexico’s Obrador, and more — accountable for its hostility to the United States. Conversely, the United States must extend greater support to President Peña and other willing partners in our hemisphere, like Costa Rica’s Rodrigo Chavez and the Dominican Republic’s Luis Abinader.
This is the only way to prevent the totalitarianism of Iran, China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from becoming a dominant force in our region. It is also key to reducing international, cartel-sponsored gang violence and drug abuse, which affect millions of Americans on an annual basis.
Unless the Biden Administration adopts this change, the United States may soon face grave threats not only in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but in its own backyard. That’s not something any U.S. president should want to be his legacy.
