The abrupt cancellation of the Summit of the Americas, a mere 29 days before its scheduled opening, has effectively rendered years of meticulous preparation and significant financial investment obsolete, an editorial El Caribe sent to its readers observes.
Since July 2022, over three years of intensive planning have gone into organizing the event. This includes the payment of US$500,000 to the Organization of American States (OAS) for the hosting rights. Suspending the summit at this late stage translates into a massive waste of both funds and thousands of man-hour, an editorial in El Caribe newsletter sent out on 5 November 2025.
The human and material resources poured into this effort are almost incalculable, remarks the media.
Consequently, El Caribe says it is trivial to spend time musing over where the 3,215 guayabera-style shirts commissioned by the Foreign Ministry (Mirex) at a cost of RD$18 million (approximately US$308,000) will be stored.
Yet the editorial sent out to readers does the same. It speculates that if the summit is merely postponed for a year, many of the intended recipients of the shirts may no longer fit into the attire. Furthermore, the writer observes it would be an injustice to simply abandon the high-quality linen shirts in storage. The question therefore remains: What will become of these thousands of custom-made shirts?
The media does not address many other costs of the last-minute cancellation, for example the cost of cancelling the reservation of the venue and the hotel rooms in Punta Cana.