Progressives, socialists to travel to PanAmerican summit to push back on Trump’s policies in region

A group of progressive U.S. lawmakers and socialist candidates are set to attend the PanAmerican Congress in Uruguay later this month to “build a lasting coalition” of progressives to push back against the “right-wing forces” in the Western Hemisphere.

“We need to build a durable and lasting coalition of progressives that can take on the right-wing forces and answer them with the necessary call of the people,” Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a leading progressive in the House said in a statement. 

Along with Jayapal, other progressive and Democratic Socialists are set to attend the conference, which will take place from Aug. 21-23.

Two Democratic Socialist candidates who won their primary elections earlier this year in New York City, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, will make the journey to Montevideo, Uruguay, where it is being held. They will also be joined by Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., and New Jersey House candidate Adam Hamawy. 

“We need a foreign policy built on international solidarity and cooperation — not imperialism, war and extraction,” Valdez told Politico Playbook. “The threats we face, from climate change to mass displacement to the rise of fascism, don’t stop at borders, and neither can our response.” 

The PanAmerican Congress was founded in 2024 to bring “together progressive legislators from across North, Central, South America and the Caribbean” to cooperate across national boundaries and to push back against ascendant right-wing governments across Latin America. 

Last week, Rep. Jayapal sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlining her opposition to the Trump administration’s “Donroe Doctrine,” a new spin on the historic Monroe Doctrine–a 19th century policy of the U.S. government that declared the Western Hemisphere off-limits to further European colonization. 

Jayapal said that the Trump administration’s policies, which include collaborating with friendly Latin American governments to combat the drug trade, fight transnational crime, and reduce illegal immigration flows, are for partisan gain. 

“Taken together, the interventions conducted under the banner of the ‘Donroe’ Doctrine appear to follow a partisan playbook: the endorsement of favored candidates, the placement of political allies, the weaponization of tariffs and sanctions, and, where those fail, the application of direct military force,” Jayapal and 10 other House colleagues wrote in the letter obtained by The Hill.

“These are tactics that destabilize our hemisphere and endanger our neighbors,” the lawmakers added.