U.S. President Joe Biden kicks off a summit on Wednesday that, as reported by Reuters, was conceived as a platform to showcase U.S. leadership in reviving Latin American economies and tackling migratory pressures, but has been boycotted by the state leaders of some countries in the Americas upset at Washington's decision to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the summit.

Mexico would press for an end to the "inhumane" decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba during the week-long Summit of the Americas being held in Los Angeles, Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday.

At a press conference prior to his departure for the June 6-10 summit, Ebrard said lifting the web of sanctions, which Cuba described as a financial, economic and trade blockade, stands to be the central theme of the summit.

"We will insist that the blockade is inhumane ... ineffective and has been condemned by all the countries that are going to be at the summit," Ebrard said.

"No country has the right to tell another how to govern itself. The foundation for a new stage in the Americas is mutual respect. It is what we are championing and will champion," he added.

The U.S.-hosted summit got off to a rough start on Monday following Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's official boycott of the regional gathering over the controversial guest list.

"It's time to change the dominant political practice," Lopez Obrador told a daily press conference on Monday, confirming his absence from the summit due to Washington's exclusion of these countries.

"So is it going to be the Summit of the Americas, or is it going to be the Summit of the 'Friends of America'?" he questioned.

Lopez Obrador's brush-off of the summit rendered futile months of work by Washington to convince him to attend. Besides Mexico, the restricted guest list has also prompted pleas from Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador and some Caribbean countries to either boycott or dispatch lower-level delegations, following Obrador's lead.

These came as an embarrassment to the White House, which dismissed last week questions from the press as to why it had yet to publish a list of summit attendees with just hours to go before the summit. Experts believed that Mexico's act alone would discourage Washington from fulfilling its stated objectives, including immigration, on which any action would require Mexico's cooperation.

In response to Washington's divisive moves, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has expressed his government's "firm, strong and total rejection of the imperialist vision that intends to exclude the peoples of the Americas" from a regional gathering.

In a statement issued Monday, the Cuban government said that there is no single reason to justify the U.S. government's "undemocratic and arbitrary exclusion" of any country of the hemisphere from the 9th Summit of the Americas.

Washington, abusing its privilege of being the host country, decided at a very early stage to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the summit, and used pressure, threats and blackmail against governments in the region, it said.

"Cuba appreciates and respects the worthy, courageous and legitimate position of numerous governments in defense of the participation of all, under equal conditions," said the statement.

"Our region demands cooperation, not exclusion; solidarity, not meanness; respect, not arrogance; sovereignty and self-determination, not subordination," it added.

Meanwhile, having tested positive for COVID-19, Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou on Monday officially canceled his trip to the Summit.

(With input from Xinhua and Reuters)