On July 4, the United States celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with soaring rhetoric of American exceptionalism. Elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, countries are marking a different historical milestone: the bicentenary of the Congress of Panama.

Two hundred years ago this summer, diplomats from across the Americas gathered in Panama for the Western Hemisphere’s first international summit. Although the bicentenary of the Congress of Panama has been overshadowed by the United States’ 250th birthday, these parallel commemorations offer a window into competing U.S. and Latin American visions for hemispheric relations. The legacy of the largely forgotten Panama summit remains relevant as the region once again confronts pressures from Washington.

The delegates in Panama contended with tropical disease, food shortages caused by years of wartime disruption, and the daunting logistics of bringing together representatives from across the region. But the greatest challenge lay elsewhere: Their newly independent states remained politically fragile. Across the Atlantic, Europe’s reactionary Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had endorsed the restoration of Ferdinand VII’s absolute rule in Spain, fueling fears that they might also back a Spanish attempt to reassert authority in the Americas. Faced with this existential threat, the delegates in Panama concluded that only a united front could safeguard their hard-won independence.

Two centuries later, Latin America once again confronts a common challenge. This time, the pressure comes not from European monarchies but from an increasingly unpredictable United States. In recent months, Washington has tightened its economic and political stranglehold on Cuba, carried out deadly maritime strikes widely criticized as violations of international law, and threatened or retaliated against governments in countries including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Panama.

Most shockingly, the Trump administration launched a raid on Jan. 3 to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Since then, the U.S. government has insisted that it will “run” the country while opening Venezuelan resources to U.S. companies. That plan was always tenuous. It now looks even more feeble as the Venezuelan government and self-styled “viceroy”—U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—grapple with the devastation caused by the June 24 earthquakes.

Yet Latin America’s response to the U.S. pressure campaign has been strikingly subdued. Leaders such as Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa cheered the U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emphasized what he called a violation of international law, but no country convened a joint response. This mix of acquiescence and timid protest is a far cry from the shared resolve that animated the Congress of Panama.

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The 1826 conference was the brainchild of Simón Bolívar, South America’s independence hero. Representatives from the newly created Gran Colombia, United Provinces of Central America, Peru, and Mexico convened in Panama, which was then a province of Gran Colombia, after two decades of brutal wars of independence against Spain.

At Bolívar’s urging, representatives forged a treaty of “perpetual union,” pledging mutual defense and an “unalterable peace” among themselves. The Congress of Panama rested on a simple but radical idea: that small states, acting together, could resist the predations of great powers. For the newly independent republics, unity was not an ideal—it was a necessity.

The delegates envisioned more than a defensive alliance. They imagined a confederation of American republics that would stand apart from the European order established at the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815 and its system of concert diplomacy. In a world of monarchies, the signatories committed themselves to preserving their existing republican forms of government and repudiating the logic of great-power domination.

Bolívar understood that division among Spain’s former colonies would invite foreign interference. The Panama settlement recognized the territorial boundaries inherited from the Spanish Empire and treated all member states as juridically equal. The signatories pledged to resolve disputes peacefully in a general assembly of the signatory states, lest external powers exploit their rivalries.

The treaties negotiated in Panama never entered into force. Their ambition exceeded the capacities of the fledgling republics, and rivalries and mutual suspicion among the former Spanish territories proved insurmountable. The remainder of the 19th century was bloody.

But despite these initial failures, the principles articulated in Panama shaped the ideals of later generations of Latin American diplomats: sovereign equality, territorial integrity, collective defense, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. In the wake of intraregional violence and foreign intervention, Latin American states repeatedly returned to these principles. Gradually, the region developed a “norm complex” that dramatically curtailed international conflicts.

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Since returning to the White House for a second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has taken direct aim at many of those principles. His restatement of the Monroe Doctrine has been unilateral, paternalistic, and militarized. Ominously, Panama found itself in his crosshairs, as Trump vowed to “take back” the Panama Canal.

The U.S. intervention in Venezuela, Bolívar’s homeland, disrupted ongoing negotiations and made a mockery of non-intervention and peaceful settlement of disputes. Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy openly called for restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” He treats Latin American countries not as equals but as subordinates. This dynamic was on full display at the recent “Shield of the Americas” summit, where Latin American leaders were summoned to Trump’s Florida golf resort to endorse, not shape, Washington’s priorities.

Many of the region’s right-wing populist governments have embraced elements of Trump’s polices, including his hard line on left-wing authoritarian regimes, tighter immigration controls, and law-and-order approach to crime and drug trafficking. But the contrast with the Congress of Panama could hardly be starker: In 1826, the delegates created a rotating presidency of the congress precisely to ensure that no republic, however powerful, would dominate the others. The Shield of the Americas reflects the opposite logic: One country sets the agenda while the others are largely left to follow its lead.

Today’s U.S. threats would not have surprised Bolívar and his contemporaries. Even in 1826, Latin Americans viewed the hemisphere’s oldest republic with ambivalence. They welcomed U.S. recognition of their independence and U.S. President James Monroe’s warning against European intervention. But they also recognized the Monroe Doctrine’s unilateralism and worried about the United States’ expansionist impulses.

Bolívar’s vision shared some rhetorical elements with the U.S. founding and Monroe’s declaration. Both cast the American revolutions as a new force in world history and approached relations with Europe with ambivalence. Yet there were also sharp differences. The United States offered Latin America protection that was unilateral and imposing. In contrast, Bolívar insisted on multilateralism among equals.

After intense debate, the organizers of the Congress of Panama decided to invite the United States. The Spanish Americans’ outreach sparked a heated debate in the United States. Proponents of U.S. participation, led by Sen. Henry Clay, portrayed the new states to the south as “sister republics” and promising trade partners. But many disagreed, fearing that participation could entangle the United States in conflicts that did not serve its interests.

The Panama agenda included the abolition of the slave trade, and, more controversially among the delegates, the liberation of Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain as well as the diplomatic recognition of Haiti. In the United States, the questions of race and culture touched a raw nerve. Others recoiled at the prospect of treating Catholic and racially heterogenous nations as peers. Sen. John Randolph decried that U.S. diplomats would sit “beside the native African, their American descendants, the mixed breeds, the Indians, and the half breeds, without any offence or scandal at so motley a mixture.”

Eventually, the U.S. Congress approved participation, but it was too late. One envoy died on the way to the event; the other arrived only after it had adjourned. The rancorous debate in Washington shattered hopes that fraternity could bridge the divide between the American republics of the north and the south.

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There is a bitter irony in the fact that the bicentenary of the Congress of Panama, so often celebrated as a symbol of Latin American unity, arrives at a moment when regional cooperation is weaker than it has been in generations.

If Bolívar could look at Latin America today, he likely would be disappointed but not surprised by the region’s divisions. Even in 1826, fears of European reconquest did not create unanimity. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile declined to send delegates or observers to the congress. Gran Colombia, Central America, Mexico, and Peru signed the treaties on July 15, 1826, but they were left unratified by all but Gran Colombia, and even that republic would soon succumb to centrifugal forces and fragment into three separate states.

Yet the Congress of Panama still offers lessons for the present.

First, the summit convened under intense external pressure, but that is not what caused its failure. Mistrust and rivalry—not least Peru’s growing unease of Bolívar’s hegemonic ambitions and his penchant for strongman rule—outweighed the commitment to unity. Ambitions at the summit exceeded what its participants were prepared to sustain. Today, after a decade of regional fragmentation, Latin America must rebuild trust among its governments. Limited, concrete agreements should replace the “declaratory regionalism” of the recent past to contain Trump’s interventionist impulses. Mercosur’s renewed enthusiasm for a trade deal with Europe suggests such a response to Trump’s capricious tariff policies.

Second, although many states opted out of the 1826 gathering, the principles articulated there outlived the congress and gradually gained wider acceptance across the region. The treaties were deliberately left open for other American states to join, reflecting the conviction that regional cooperation could expand over time rather than requiring unanimity from the outset. Given Latin America’s current ideological divisions, smaller coalitions of states will once again have to lead the way, whether through existing arrangements such as the Pacific Alliance, Caribbean Community, and Mercosur or new issue-specific minilateral initiatives.

Third, Washington ultimately decided that participation at the Congress of Panama would serve its interests. Later generations of U.S. foreign policymakers would cite Bolívar’s meeting as a precedent for Pan-Americanism, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy,” and the Organization of American States. The organization remains contested in Latin America, but it is also a reminder that the United States has often pursued its interests in the Western Hemisphere through multilateralism.

Finally, the contrast between the Congress of Panama and the Shield of the Americas demonstrates that Latin Americans can be rule-makers, too. In 1826, the United States was invited only after Latin Americans had set the agenda. That vision of hemispheric cohesion is worlds apart from Trump’s National Security Strategy.

At the Panama summit, Latin Americans led the way. The principles they set up two centuries ago, including sovereign equality, territorial integrity, collective defense, and the peaceful settlement of disputes, became cornerstones of the modern international order.