The US has ex­pressed its dis­plea­sure at how mem­bers of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) have han­dled Venezuela and Haiti, and the bud­get of the OAS is now un­der re­view by the US State De­part­ment, ac­cord­ing to Mar­tin Lan­dau, US Un­der­sec­re­tary of State, who spoke to a gath­er­ing of OAS mem­bers in An­tigua- Bar­bu­da some months ago. The US con­tributes about half of the OAS bud­get. While Venezuela was, un­der Nico­las Maduro, a col­lab­o­rat­ing coun­try with Cari­com, Haiti is a full mem­ber, and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, this year’s host for the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, is a CAR­I­FO­RUM coun­try.

How are things like­ly to de­vel­op or un­rav­el in the con­text that has been un­fold­ing over the next year? And how will Cari­com be able to play a mean­ing­ful role? Be­cause Cari­com must find a way to play a mean­ing­ful role in hemi­spher­ic af­fairs. There are 15 Cari­com coun­tries and six as­so­ci­at­ed mem­bers shar­ing the Caribbean Sea among 35 sov­er­eign states and var­i­ous de­pen­den­cies in the West­ern hemi­sphere or the Amer­i­c­as. What is the point of not hav­ing a say? What is the point of a frag­ment­ed re­gion and a dis­joint­ed per­spec­tive? How are small coun­tries with­out mil­i­tary strength go­ing to con­tribute to peace, or­der and de­vel­op­ment in the hemi­sphere and make their way through to eco­nom­ic progress in a rules-based frame­work in which agreed rules are up­held?

There have been al­le­ga­tions of drug con­nec­tions in­volv­ing po­lit­i­cal fig­ures across the Caribbean with Maduro. How this will be treat­ed in Maduro’s tri­al, and when re­lat­ed tes­ti­mo­ny on this mat­ter may arise, is un­cer­tain. A tri­al in­volv­ing a high-pro­file fig­ure like Maduro will in­volve a long process be­fore get­ting to the sub­stance of the case. In this par­tic­u­lar case, the US Jus­tice sys­tem will be un­der care­ful scruti­ny.

But be­yond this, Cari­com and Caribbean coun­tries must un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate their own val­ue and must work out dif­fer­ences among them­selves and find com­mon ground to en­gage an equal­ly frag­ment­ed Latin Amer­i­ca and a Unit­ed States on a hege­mon­ic path to un­bri­dled hemi­spher­ic pow­er from Green­land to Tier­ra del Fuego in­volv­ing a US Pres­i­dent with a fron­tier men­tal­i­ty to­wards the world, tech­nol­o­gy and out­er space.

Frag­men­ta­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean is nei­ther in this re­gion’s best in­ter­est nor that of the hemi­sphere. Un­bri­dled pow­er to a coun­try as dom­i­nant as the US could not be in any­one’s in­ter­est, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed States. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the US Leg­is­la­ture are al­ready seek­ing ways and means of con­tain­ing such un­bri­dled pow­er and sub­du­ing the dis­po­si­tion to ex­ec­u­tive ar­bi­trari­ness and ex­cess.

In the long CELAC meet­ing to dis­cuss a con­sen­sus po­si­tion to present at the Unit­ed Na­tions, af­ter the ouster of Maduro, no con­sen­sus could be achieved. Not on­ly was the gap be­tween Brazil and Ar­genti­na wide but in­di­vid­ual coun­try po­si­tions re­vealed a frag­ment­ed per­spec­tive and di­vid­ed Latin Amer­i­ca. Cari­com was equal­ly frag­ment­ed and di­vid­ed, be­tween tra­di­tion­al non-in­ter­ven­tion­ists, sup­port for a US hard line on nar­coter­ror­ism and deep con­cerns about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.

The burn­ing is­sues of Cu­ba and Haiti are bound to come, maybe as ear­ly as the next few weeks, as Cu­ba is cut off from Venezue­lan oil. Cu­ba is both a Caribbean is­land and a Latin Amer­i­can coun­try. Haiti is a Cari­com mem­ber state. It has a long rev­o­lu­tion­ary tra­di­tion, which was ad­mired by Venezue­lan lib­er­a­tor of Latin Amer­i­ca, Si­mon Bo­li­var. More­over, the ex­e­cu­tion of for­mer Haiti Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se seems to have in­volved Hait­ian politi­cians, ex-Colom­bian sol­diers and US or­gan­is­ers. Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean can­not re­sile from the is­sues that are sure to emerge around Cu­ba and Haiti.

In ad­di­tion, Venezuela, Cu­ba and Nicaragua were ex­clud­ed from the last Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as. What must hap­pen in these coun­tries with­in the year for them to be in­clud­ed this time, at the first Sum­mit that US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump will ac­tu­al­ly at­tend, and where he is like­ly to make pro­nounce­ments on Amer­i­ca first pol­i­cy with re­gard to the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Or will oth­er coun­tries, like Colom­bia, be now left out?

The Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca must come to­geth­er to seek their col­lec­tive and com­mon in­ter­est, which can on­ly be served by a shared pros­per­i­ty agen­da for the hemi­sphere, which is the most un­equal, re­gion in the world. And which can on­ly be achieved through trade, in­vest­ment and de­vel­op­ment; drug, gang­ster ter­ror­ism, crime con­tain­ment and good gov­er­nance; hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty, and an in­clu­sive, rules- based, hemi­spher­ic agen­da to which all can agree to sub­scribe. Even the big im­mi­gra­tion prob­lem is root­ed in po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty, vi­o­lence, hu­man se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is­sues.