Salvadoran leader rebuffs Blinken effort to bolster summit

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was the sort of diplomatic rebuff a small country like El Salvador generally can rarely afford to make.

In the run-up to this week's Summit of Americas in Los Angeles, senior U.S. officials frantically worked the phones seeking to boost attendance amid threats of a boycott from Mexico's president and other leftist leaders over the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Among those efforts, the State Department sent a message that Secretary of State Antony Blinken wanted to speak with President Nayib Bukele last weekend, a rare show of comity from a Biden administration that for months had been blasting the Central American leader as a power-hungry populist.

“Participating in the Summit is a very good opportunity for President Bukele to explain his perspective to the Salvadoran community in LA and Joe Biden,” Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols wrote in a message to Bukele's ambassador in Washington.

In the end, Bukele didn't take the bait and the call never happened, said two people close to the Salvadoran president, who insisted on being given anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic dealings.

Another request to set up a call with Blinken, made through the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, was similarly rebuffed, according to the two people, one of whom showed The Associated Press a copy of the messages.

The concerted effort by Blinken to reach out to one of the Biden administration's frequent targets in Latin America underscores the lengths to which U.S. officials went to avoid an embarrassing flop at the summit.

It also demonstrates how controversial leaders like Bukele, who skirted criticism from the Trump administration in exchange for wholesale support of its crackdown on migration, have struggled to adjust to a return to a...