US President Barack Obama on Saturday won praise for offering a closer partnership with the Americas, even from left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who moved to restore normal ties with Washington.
The warm reception for Mr Obama contrasted with the Summit of the Americas four years ago in Argentina, where leftists like Mr Chavez attacked the "imperialist" policies of former President George W. Bush.
After speaking with Mr Obama, Mr Chavez, a standard-bearer for anti-US sentiment in Latin America, named a former foreign minister as his envoy to Washington in a move to restore relations between his Opec nation and the United States.
But Mr Obama, attending his first Summit of the Americas, came under pressure from Latin American and Caribbean leaders to lift the US trade embargo against communist-ruled Cuba.
Brazil joined Venezuela and Caribbean nations in applauding Mr Obama's new approach, but the friendly atmosphere was tempered by repeated calls for Washington to do more to end its half-century-old ideological conflict with Cuba.
"Relations with Cuba will be an important sign of the willingness of the United States to relate to the region," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at the summit meeting in Port of Spain, adding, "There is no place in our continent for policies of isolation," referring to the embargo against Cuba. Mr Chavez even suggested Cuba, the only country excluded from the regional summit, could host the next one.
Mr Obama earlier this week eased parts of the US embargo against Cuba, but most of the Latin American and Caribbean leaders gathered here want it scrapped completely.
Brazil's Lula welcomed Mr Obama's moves to relax the sanctions but described them as "insufficient." "It's important they be amplified, but without conditions," he said.
However talk of ending the United States' 47-year old Cuban trade embargo was premature and won't happen unless Havana alters its policies, President Barack Obama's top economic advisor said yesterday.
"That is way down the road, and it is going to depend on what Cuba does going forward," White House Director of the National Economic Council Lawrence Summers told NBC's "Meet the Press", when asked under what circumstances Obama would lift the embargo.