No Empty Chairs: The Case For Attending the 2025 Summit of the Americas

WASHINGTON, DC – The Dominican Republic (DR) is hosting the 2025 Summit of the Americas – a gathering of the Heads of State and Government of 32 countries of the Western Hemisphere.

On September 30, the Government of the DR, publicly stated that Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela will not be invited to the 2025 Summit of the Americas. The Government was careful to explain that its choice is necessary to “ensure the widest possible political dialogue” and to “guarantee the success of the Summit.” It also makes clear that this decision “does not interfere with bilateral relations” with any of the three countries.

This decision is likely to provoke a response similar to that seen at the 2022 Summit in Los Angeles, when the U.S. administration of Joe Biden did not invite the same three governments.

Calls for Heads of Government to stay away followed, and a few did so in protest at the non-invitation of Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, and Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

Leaders should think hard before staying away from the 2025 Summit. Global and regional conditions have shifted: wars in the Middle East and Europe cast economic and security shadows across the Americas; within the hemisphere, ideological rifts are reopening. This is precisely the moment for leaders to meet— to manage differences, protect interests, and act in the interest of all the peoples of the Americas.

Attendance is leverage, not endorsement. Leaders who believe that Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela should be invited should say so at the Summit, in direct terms. Refusing to attend neither alters the guest list nor delivers gains for the peoples of the Americas; it only removes strong national voices from the room where decisions and deals are made.

The agenda in Punta Cana in the DR is built around four urgent security pillars: citizen security, energy security, water security, and food security. Across reputable global assessments, Latin America and the Caribbean ranks poorly on all four: the region bears the world’s highest homicide burden; most countries are not water-secure; energy-transition progress and grid reliability lag behind other regions; and the cost of a healthy diet is the highest in the world, alongside elevated food-insecurity rates. They determine whether freedom of speech is preserved; whether hospitals, schools and hotels have electricity; whether water pipes run and crops survive; whether households have access to food at prices they can afford.

The DR government put out the suggested theme for the Summit with these four pillars since February and the first draft of a possible Declaration from the Summit was issued in June. Since September 11, government representatives of the 32 countries have been negotiating the outcome document.

A major initiative at this Summit is the CEO Convocation co-hosted with the Inter-American Development Bank. That platform is designed for public authorities and private capital to assemble the financing and execution capacity that the four pillars require. Public–private partnerships, built transparently and on fair terms, can shorten delivery timelines and spread costs sensibly. The CEO meeting is where those partnerships can be made real.

Another imperative is greater trade and economic integration across Latin America and the Caribbean. Integration scales markets, deepens and de-risks supply chains, and accelerates the spread of knowledge and expertise. Practical steps such as, customs facilitation, reliable sea- and air-links, and competitively priced access to infrastructure inputs, are all matters leaders should use the Summit to agree and advance.

Apart from these general considerations, Caribbean leaders should be at the Summit to focus  on particular Caribbean concerns. The recent UN Security Council decision on Haiti must be advanced with practical timelines, resources, and roles. Understanding and progress are also needed on differences over climate change and sustainable development, where positions diverge but impacts converge. The negotiations in the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), made up of all the independent states of the Americas except Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, began on September 11 and have yet to resolve differences on these points at the technical level. It may take direct consultation by leaders to agree on actions that can be taken.

The last Summit, despite political controversy, still produced outcomes of value, including climate- and energy-cooperation channels that mobilized technical support and investment for Caribbean states. The lesson is straightforward: even when politics creates dissonance, useful progress is possible when leaders are present, prepared, and focused.

There is a wider principle that should be stated; movement toward greater democracy and respect for human, civil, and political rights is necessary for broad-based development and for international financial support.

In Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, tangible steps in that direction would encourage broader backing across the hemisphere. In Venezuela’s case specifically, military threats against Guyana should give way to a peaceful, lawful path under international law and the process of the International Court of Justice that the UN Secretary-General authorized and CARICOM governments have endorsed.

It is understood that President Trump may not attend for security reasons – a concern that might yet be resolved. Nonetheless, senior U.S. representation is expected; at minimum Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Vice President Vance, or both.

The margins of the Summit are well-suited to quiet, candid exchanges with U.S. principals on the effects of U.S. policy across the hemisphere; conversations that can yield practical attention to pressing issues.

This is a meeting to be present, active, and speaking: the DR government has set a constructive path; its non-invitations to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are framed as a Summit-specific decision, without prejudice to bilateral relations. Leaders should use that path to pursue national interests and advance hemispheric cooperation. Not attending leaves influence at the table in other hands. Attending, and doing the work, serves the people of the Americas.

Sir Ronald Sanders is the Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and the OAS, and Dean of the OAS Ambassadors accredited to the OAS. Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com