Yoopya with Associated Press
President Joe Biden is opening his second Summit for Democracy with a pledge for the U.S. to spend $690 million bolstering democracy programs around the globe.
The Biden administration wants to use the two-day summit that begins Wednesday to zero in on making technology work for and not against democracy, according to a senior administration official. Some 120 global leaders have been invited to participate.
Biden frequently speaks of the U.S. and like-minded allies being at a critical moment in which democracies need to demonstrate they can out-deliver autocracies. The summits, something Biden promised as a Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, have become an important piece of his administration’s effort to try to build deeper alliances and nudge autocratic-leaning nations toward at least modest reforms.
The new funding will focus on programs that support free and independent media, combat corruption, bolster human rights, advance technology that improves democracy, and support free and fair elections.
The official, who previewed the summit on the condition of anonymity, said the administration has also come to an agreement with 10 other nations on guiding principles for how the governments should use surveillance technology.
The surveillance tech agreement comes after Biden signed an executive order earlier this week restricting the U.S. government’s use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world.
The world has had a tumultuous 15 months since Biden’s first democracy summit in December 2021. Countries emerged from the coronavirus pandemic, and Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II. Biden has also tangled with Beijing, speaking out repeatedly about China’s military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
Worldwide, we see autocrats violating human rights and suppressing fundamental freedoms; corrupting — and with corruption eating away at young people’s faith in their future; citizens questioning whether democracy can still deliver on the issues that matter most to their lives and to their livelihoods, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a pre-summit virtual event on Tuesday.
The U.S. hosted the last summit on its own. This time, it recruited four co-hosts — Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia — after ambassadors from China and Russia criticized the first summit and accused Biden of causing a global divide with a Cold War mentality.
Still, some countries would rather not get between Washington and Beijing.
Pakistan announced, as it did in 2021, that it received an invitation but would skip the summit, a move seen in part as an effort by the impoverished Islamic nation to assuage longtime ally China, which was not invited.
The Biden administration has also expanded its invitation list. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gambia, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Lichtenstein, Mauritania, Mozambique and Tanzania were extended invitations to this year’s summit after being left off the list in 2021.
The first day of the summit will be a virtual format and will be followed on Thursday by hybrid gatherings in each of the host countries, with representatives from government, civil society and the private sector participating.
Costa Rica will focus on the role of youth in democratic systems. The Dutch are taking on media freedom. South Korea is looking at corruption. Zambia is centering on free and fair elections
The U.S. is no stranger to the challenges facing democracies, including deep polarization and pervasive misinformation.
Lies spread about the 2020 presidential election by then-President Donald Trump and his supporters have convinced a majority of Republicans that Biden was not legitimately elected, normalized harassment and death threats against election officials, and been used to justify efforts in Republican-controlled legislatures to adopt new voting restrictions.