Formed in 1986, it gathered 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries around summits to cooperate regional policy issue independently of the United States.

[10] The summit finished with the signing of the Bahia Declaration, a common agenda establishing the following priorities: cooperation between mechanism of regional and subregional integration, the global financial crisis, energy, infrastructures, social development and eradication of hunger and poverty, food security, sustainable development, natural disasters, human rights promotion, migration, South–South cooperation and Latin America and Caribbean projection.

[11][12] In 2008, the Calderón administration of Mexico proposed the creation of the Latin American and the Caribbean Union (Spanish: Unión Latinoamericana y del Caribe, ULC).

[13] Hugo Chávez, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Rafael Correa were among the other prominent left-wing leaders who praised the creation of CELAC.

[16] An editorial in Brazil's Estadão newspaper said, "CELAC reflects the disorientation of the region's governments in relation to its problematic environment and its lack of foreign policy direction, locked as it is into the illusion that snubbing the United States will do for Latin American integration what 200 years of history failed to do.

[18] Chávez, and other leaders such as Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega, expressed hope that the bloc would work to further Latin American integration, end U.S. hegemony and consolidate control over regional affairs.

[19] Amongst the key issues on the agenda were the creation of a "new financial architecture," sanction for maintaining the legal status of coca in Bolivia and the rejection of the Cuban embargo by the U.S.[20] United States President Barack Obama's senior adviser on Latin America, Daniel Restrepo, informed reporters from Miami that the U.S. government would "watch and see what direction CELAC takes".

[21] Brazil decided to suspend its participation in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in January 2020 under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

"Unity and the integration of our region must be gradually constructed, with flexibility, with respect to differences, diversity, and the sovereign right of each of our countries to choose our own forms of political and economic organization" stated the document.

Cuba's Raúl Castro pointed out that throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, people wanted a fairer distribution of wealth, access to affordable education, employment, better salaries, and the eradication of illiteracy.