With an eye toward China, Biden to meet Latin leaders on economics, migration

By Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed leaders from Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada to the White House on Friday to discuss economic issues and migration as he seeks to bolster ties in the region to counter China and stem the flow of migrants.

Leaders from Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay attended Friday's gathering, along with senior officials from Mexico and Panama.

Biden kicked off the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Leaders' Summit with a message of hope despite massive foreign policy challenges posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and Ukraine's bid to repel Russian invaders.

Biden said the goal was to "harness the incredible economic potential of the Americas and make the Western Hemisphere the most economically competitive region in the world," drawing a sharp contrast to China's practices.

"We want to make sure that our closest neighbors know they have a real choice between debt-trap diplomacy and high-quality transparent approaches to infrastructure and inter-development," Biden said. "All we need to do is ... keep delivering on the positive vision we all share for a region that is secure, prosperous and democratic."

Senior administration officials said Biden will announce new economic tools together with the Inter-American Development Bank and private donors to aid countries hosting migrants in the Western Hemisphere. The goal is to expand economic cooperation and curb migrant arrivals at the U.S-Mexico border.

Six APEP countries - Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Panama - had offered legal status to millions of people displaced in the Western Hemisphere, one of the officials said.

"They have stepped up in big ways and we are stepping up for them. APEP is a big part of that," the official added.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hosted a breakfast meeting for the leaders at the Treasury on Friday, telling them that the U.S. would work closely with the IDB to support efforts to better integrate the region's supply chains.

She said Treasury strongly supported efforts by IDB President Ilan Goldfajn to reform its private sector arm, IDB Invest, and would work with the bank's other shareholders to enable a "significant" capital increase for IDB Invest.

The IDB, the region's largest development bank, will unveil a new financing platform to serve middle- and higher-income countries, potentially mobilizing billions of dollars for investment in renewable energy, officials said.

The effort was focused on bolstering the region's ability to compete globally in the clean energy, semiconductor and medical supplies sectors, one of the officials said.

The summit follows a similarly themed meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders in Los Angeles last year, part of a broader push aimed at strengthening regional economic ties and reducing China's influence in the region.

At the "Summit of the Americas," the U.S. and 19 other countries signed a non-binding declaration agreeing to a set of measures to confront the migration crisis.

Record numbers of migrants have crossed illegally through the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people heading north after traversing a perilous jungle region known as the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Andrea Ricci)