The Caribbean has a cen­tral stake in the res­o­lu­tion of pow­er is­sues and eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal is­sues in Venezuela by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion. Venezuela is a Latin Amer­i­can as well as a Caribbean coun­try, and is on­ly sev­en miles away from the bor­der of Trinidad, the near­est Caribbean is­land. Cari­com must have a co­her­ent view on a sta­ble fu­ture for Venezuela, a coun­try which now has mi­grants across the Caribbean re­gion be­cause its se­cu­ri­ty could be at stake.

The Caribbean should al­so be pay­ing close at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing in Cu­ba which is, in fact, a Caribbean na­tion, as well as a Latin Amer­i­can coun­try. How a tran­si­tion in Cu­ba is ne­go­ti­at­ed and re­solved is of great im­por­tance to the re­gion and the world. Will it fol­low the Cara­cas mod­el, or will oth­er is­sues turn out to be more im­por­tant be­cause of the sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal weight of the Cuban-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty in Flori­da and the fact that the US Sec­re­tary of State is of Cuban-Amer­i­can her­itage?

The US State De­part­ment is in­sis­tent on re­plac­ing the Cas­tro (Fi­del and Raoul) regime. The chal­lenge is how to do this and have rel­a­tive­ly con­formist gov­er­nance from a US point of view, as is the case now in Venezuela, and how to avoid a col­lapse of so­cial or­der and de­scent in­to chaos. From the US point of view, or­der seems more im­por­tant than democ­ra­cy or the as­pi­ra­tions of the Cuban peo­ple.

Haiti was the sec­ond coun­try in the West­ern Hemi­sphere to de­clare it­self In­de­pen­dent af­ter a rev­o­lu­tion (1804). They did this af­ter the US, which first de­clared it­self In­de­pen­dent af­ter a rev­o­lu­tion too (1776). Haiti, over the course of his­to­ry, has nev­er been able to gov­ern it­self ef­fec­tive­ly. Lead­er­ship has been ad­ven­tur­ist and out­side in­ter­fer­ence per­sis­tent. Haiti has a care­tak­er gov­ern­ment now prepar­ing what is es­sen­tial­ly a gang­ster rid­den coun­try for elec­tion in a few months. What the body politic and par­ty sys­tem will throw up, what role the gangs will play, what con­di­tions will pre­vail to fa­cil­i­tate free and fair elec­tions - are left to be seen. And Haiti is a Cari­com coun­try.

At first glance, it may not seem like the Strait of Hor­muz has any­thing to do with the Caribbean, but it does. No one pays to use sea routes now. But if Iran can charge a toll to pass through the Strait, and the Caribbean does not un­der­stand the prin­ci­ple that is at stake and fails to fight it. The coun­tries of this re­gion could end up pay­ing pro­tec­tion mon­ey to every coastal State by 2030 as a bad ex­am­ple be­comes nor­malised and prece­dent de­ter­mines prac­tice.

I raise these is­sues of Venezuela, Cu­ba, Haiti and Strait of Hor­muz to show that far from be­ing pe­riph­er­al to the cen­tral is­sues of the day, the Caribbean is ac­tu­al­ly cen­tral to the most im­por­tant is­sues that are dom­i­nant for the US now and cur­rent­ly be­ing nav­i­gat­ed in the midst of a dis­rup­tive as­sault by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, by the key geopo­lit­i­cal play­ers in the world who are ei­ther ac­tive ob­servers, play­ers in the back­ground, or qui­et­ly en­gag­ing on mul­ti­ple fronts off screen.

Hor­muz is a cen­tral is­sue for the Caribbean and for is­land states. Sin­ga­pore, a small is­land coun­try which has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly built it­self in­to an eco­nom­ic pow­er­house, re­spect­ed for clear, un­equiv­o­cal prin­ci­ples of gov­er­nance, has come out very strong­ly against any tax­es for use of the sea and ocean wa­ter­ways. It has been joined in sup­port of this po­si­tion by Mal­ta, Fi­ji and Ja­maica, coun­tries rep­re­sent­ing the Mediter­ranean, Pa­cif­ic and Caribbean Ocean re­gions. If canals be­come toll gates rather than gate­ways, it will sig­nal a ma­jor world change.

The Strait of Hor­muz con­tro­ver­sy is not a dis­tant geopo­lit­i­cal event. It is an im­me­di­ate do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic emer­gency for Cari­com, which are all price-tak­ing coun­tries with sec­ondary ports. If free seas die, the cur­rent eco­nom­ic mod­el of the is­land state dies with it. Cari­com must join, there­fore, with Sin­ga­pore and is­lands across the world to lever­age this Strait of Hor­muz tax­es is­sue as the be­gin­ning of a frontal fight about glob­al stew­ard­ship. Small is­land states must lead this be­cause they have the most to lose.

Cari­com must put its house in or­der now to take up this fight ef­fec­tive­ly. Char­i­ty be­gins at home. Our coun­tries in this re­gion should make them­selves cen­tral to the res­o­lu­tion of the fun­da­men­tal is­sues on the world stage cur­rent­ly, which all af­fect this re­gion in very con­se­quen­tial ways.