by Raimundo Urrechaga

HAVANA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- The United States will make its constant struggle to rescue its domination over Latin America in the eighth Summit of the Americas (SOA) in Peru, said a renowned Cuban expert.

U.S. President Donald Trump has canceled his first trip to Latin America and also would not participate in the eighth SOA. However, in an interview with Xinhua, Luis Suarez, an international relations professor at the University of Havana, said what matters most is not Trump's presence at the meeting but the political and economic proposal the United States will make at this meeting.

According to reports, Trump's envoy Mike Pence, U.S. vice president, will present and gather opinions at the meeting on a new regional strategy.

"They are preparing for the SOA as an opportunity to place their economic and political agenda in the hemisphere," said Suarez.

The Cuban scholar said Washington will also present this kind of strategy at other international meetings this year, such as the G20 in Argentina and the G7 in Canada.

Suarez stressed that, for Washington, the vision of growth is centered on "unequal economic development" and Trump's policy of "America First."

This plan, said the expert, means the White House will seek to impose its economic view of the world, defend the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency, and promote the creation of an integrated financial banking system that allows for the monitoring of all operations carried out in the continent.

He said that this proposal would not be a free trade zone for the Americas but rather the "freedom of extracting capital from the region to the United States," as well as a sanctioning mechanism for those who fail to comply with the provisions of such policy.

"The United States designs its own policies and then uses these summits to gather support and consensus from the region's governments in order to colonize it," said Suarez.