President Joe Biden plunged into this week’s Summit of the Americas pushing for regional progress by addressing economic development, climate change and migration despite the absence of some notable counterparts from Latin America.

With the U.S. playing host to the gathering for the first time since 1994, Biden and his team set about strengthening relationships and moving past the considerable drama over which world leaders would participate.

“At this summit,” Biden said in his opening remarks Wednesday night, “we have an opportunity for us to come together around some bold ideas, ambitious actions and to demonstrate to our people the incredible power of democracies to deliver concrete benefits and make life better for everyone. Everyone.”

Biden on Thursday delivered an address to a broad range of attendees, saying they were gathered in Los Angeles on the basis of a simple agreement: "Because we believe in the incredible economic potential of the Americas."

"I know I do. We all do," the president said. "I just think the potential is unlimited. The region is filled with dynamic energy."

Biden went on to outline some of the summit goals, including the launch of a new U.S.-Caribbean partnership to "support climate adaptation and strengthen energy security," per the White House, which will be further detailed later in the day. Another program, called "Amazonia Connect," will provide $12 million to Brazil, Colombia and Peru to protect forests and other local ecosystems.

In order to advance both climate and economic goals in the region, the U.S. announced it would be "enhancing cooperation" with the four regional development banks by procuring additional funds from the private sector and other available sources. Biden also called on governments and the private sector to invest in projects that bolster regional economies. 

"Over the course of this summit, the governments are coming together to make significant, concrete commitments across a range of issues vital to achieving sustainable and equitable growth throughout the region," Biden said. 

"We stand at an inflection point," he continued, adding: "My challenge to all of you is if you step up and play a bigger role in driving inclusive, sustainable, equitable growth in the 21st century, a lot is going to happen. What more can you do to engage in these issues to shape our future?"

The U.S. president will spent part of Thursday sitting down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and later was scheduled to meet for the first time with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Caribbean leaders to talk about clean energy, and first lady Jill Biden was hosting a brunch to build relationships with fellow spouses.

The day is expected to end with a dinner at the Getty Villa, an art museum with views of the Pacific Ocean.

Biden on Thursday focused on the prospect of a completely democratic region.

"We already have a circumstance where it's the most democratic hemisphere in the world," he told Trudeau. "There's no reason why from Canada and along the Arctic, all the way down the tip of Chile and Argentina that we can't, this can't become a more democratic, a united and middle-class, economically-prosperous hemisphere"

Trudeau agreed: "The reflections that you're bringing forward on democracy reminds us that it is extraordinarily important to be there for each other and to be there for our allies around the world."

"Democracy is not just fairer, but it's also better for citizens in terms of putting food on the table, putting futures in front of them," he added.

A range of activists from the United States and dissidents from the region have been gathering around the Los Angeles convention center, where most of the meetings are taking place, to promote their causes.

There could be tension when Biden meets for the first time with Bolsonaro, an ally of former President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro is running for a second term and has been casting doubt on the credibility of his country’s elections, something that has alarmed officials in Washington.

When Bolsonaro accepted an invitation to the summit, he asked that Biden not confront him over his election attacks, according to three of the Brazilian leader’s Cabinet ministers who requested anonymity to discuss the issue.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, rejected the idea that Biden had agreed to any conditions for the meeting with Bolsonaro.

“There are no topics off limits in any bilateral the president does, including with President Bolsonaro,” Sullivan told reporters. He added, “I do anticipate that the president will discuss open, free, fair and transparent democratic elections.”

Biden began emphasizing the theme on Wednesday as he welcomed leaders to the summit.

“Democracy is a hallmark of our region,” he said.

It also became a sticking point when planning the guest list for the event. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wanted the leaders of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to be invited, but the U.S. resisted because it considers them authoritarians.

Ultimately, an agreement could not be reached, and López Obrador decided not to attend. Neither did the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Honduras Foreign Relations Secretary Eduardo Enrique Reina spoke about President Xiomara Castro’s decision to stay away.

“The president was very clear that this should be a summit without exclusions,” Reina said. Still, he said the Honduran government was ready to work on common problems, saying, “The political will to work with all countries in the Americas is there.”

It’s a reminder that relations with Latin America have proved tricky for the administration even as it solidifies ties in Europe, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted closer cooperation, and in Asia, where China’s rising influence has rattled some countries in the region.

One challenge is the unmistakable power imbalance in the hemisphere. World Bank data shows that the U.S. economy is more than 14 times the size of Brazil, the next-largest economy at the summit. The sanctions the U.S. and its allies levied against Russia are much harder in Brazil, which imports fertilizer from Russia. And trade data indicate that the region has deepening ties with China, which has also invested in the region.

This leaves the U.S. in a position of showing Latin America why a tighter relationship with Washington would be more beneficial at a time when economies are still struggling to emerge from the pandemic and inflation has worsened conditions.

Sullivan pledged that the U.S. “will be putting specific dollars into producing tangible results” in the region, with worker training and money for food security, among other things.

“When you tally all that up and look at the practical impact of what the summit deliverables from the United States will mean for the public sphere, it is significantly more impactful on the actual lives and livelihoods of the people of this region than the kinds of extractive projects that China has been invested in,” he said.

Suzanne Clark, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a blog post that her organization is partnering with the U.S. State Department to host a related CEO summit. The chamber’s top listed priorities are increasing rule of law and trade with Latin America countries.

“The pandemic’s impact has been exacerbated by stagnant economic growth and longstanding ills such as poverty, inequality, insecurity, corruption, and inadequate health care,” Clark said. “As the hemisphere emerges from the cloud of COVID, new challenges such as rising inflation, especially in the food and energy sectors, threaten to further expose the region’s fragility.”

Harris has been emphasizing private sector investment to address the region’s challenges, particularly when it comes to reducing migration by offering more economic opportunity in people’s home countries.

“One of the things that is without question, when we are able to improve the prosperity and stability of our neighbors, we as a nation benefit,” she told reporters Wednesday. “So the work that we have been doing in the summit has been to bring CEOs together, heads of state of a number of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are going to be here to talk about how we can continue to collaborate.”

NOTE: Spectrum News' Lydia Pantazes spoke with Yesika Baker, owner of Chamo Venezuelan Cuisine in Pasadena, about what she thinks about Venezuela being barred from the Summit of the Americas. Watch the video in the player above.