A meeting with fellow American heads of state in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata might sound like a welcome distraction for a US president facing mounting problems at home and in the Middle East. But this weekend?s Summit of the Americas ? the fourth since 1994 ? is unlikely to be much of a rest cure for George W. Bush. The president is visiting a region where he is unpopular and anti-Americanism is strong.

US commitment to democracy is widely shared, but Mr Bush?s recipe for development ? open economies and market-oriented reform ? is viewed in the region with increasing scepticism. Worse still, the US president risks being upstaged by his biggest Latin American critic ? Hugo Ch?vez, the rumbustious president of Venezuela who recently branded his own alternative state-centred, free-spending and anti-US vision for Latin America?s future as ?21st-century socialism?.