By Steve Holland&nbsp;and&nbsp;Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;and&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;from Canada, Latin America&nbsp;and&nbsp;the Caribbean on Friday pledged to strengthen the Western Hemisphere's supply chains as Washington works to counter&nbsp;China&nbsp;and&nbsp;stem regional migration.
Biden&nbsp;hosted&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;from Barbados, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru&nbsp;and&nbsp;Uruguay&nbsp;and&nbsp;top officials from Mexico&nbsp;and&nbsp;Panama at the White House.
Leaders&nbsp;at the inaugural Americas Partnership for&nbsp;Economic&nbsp;Prosperity (APEP)&nbsp;Leaders' Summit agreed to strengthening supply chains in areas including clean energy, medical supplies&nbsp;and&nbsp;semiconductors. The also vowed to expand&nbsp;regional trade links.
Biden&nbsp;started the meetings with a message of hope despite challenges posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict&nbsp;and&nbsp;the Ukraine war.
He said the summit's goal was to "harness the incredible&nbsp;economic&nbsp;potential of the Americas&nbsp;and&nbsp;make the Western Hemisphere the most&nbsp;economically competitive region in the world," drawing a sharp contrast to&nbsp;China's often-criticized lending practices.
"We want to make sure that our closest neighbors know they have a real choice between debt-trap diplomacy&nbsp;and&nbsp;high-quality transparent approaches to infrastructure&nbsp;and&nbsp;inter-development,"&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;said.
The&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;agreed to meet every two years, with Costa Rica to host the next&nbsp;leaders' summit in 2025.
Senior U.S. officials said they hope to reduce the numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S-Mexico border by expanding&nbsp;economic&nbsp;opportunities for people at home.
Six APEP countries - Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile&nbsp;and&nbsp;Panama - had offered legal status to millions of people displaced in the Western Hemisphere, one of the officials said. "They have stepped up in big ways&nbsp;and&nbsp;we are stepping up for them," the official added.
Record numbers of migrants have crossed illegally through the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people heading north after traversing a perilous jungle region known as the Darien Gap between Colombia&nbsp;and&nbsp;Panama.
Jason Marczak, senior director of the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said the partnership would "set the stage for a new era of U.S. investment in the region." He cited bipartisan support in Congress for more investment after supply chain snafus during the COVID-19 pandemic triggered concerns about over-reliance on&nbsp;China.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hosted a meeting for the&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;on Friday&nbsp;and&nbsp;said Washington would work with other shareholders to enable a "significant" capital increase for the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) private sector arm, IDB Invest.
The United States, Canada, South Korea&nbsp;and&nbsp;Spain are working with the IDB to make $89 million in grants available for countries dealing most with irregular migration, the White House said.
The IDB will also unveil a new financing platform to serve middle-&nbsp;and&nbsp;higher-income countries, potentially mobilizing billions of dollars for investment in renewable energy, U.S. officials said.
Meanwhile, the United States Agency for International Development committed $5 million to help launch an "accelerator" program to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs from the Americas.
(Reporting by Steve Holland&nbsp;and&nbsp;Andrea Shalal; Editing by Trevor Hunnicutt&nbsp;and&nbsp;Alistair Bell)

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