Ian Quan-Soon

Since the end of colo­nial rule, Caribbean na­tions have fluc­tu­at­ed be­tween as­pi­ra­tions for uni­ty and the re­al­i­ties of frag­men­ta­tion. Ear­ly at­tempts to build a po­lit­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly in­te­grat­ed re­gion were even­tu­al­ly re­placed by in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic ap­proach­es, with each na­tion opt­ing to pur­sue its own path. The im­pact of this dis­uni­ty has been sig­nif­i­cant and far-reach­ing.

On their own, Caribbean states con­tin­ue to grap­ple with en­dur­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial dif­fi­cul­ties. Their rel­a­tive­ly small sizes, lim­it­ed pop­u­la­tions, and lack of di­verse com­par­a­tive eco­nom­ic ad­van­tages—be­yond the well-known al­lure of sun and sea—make them es­pe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble with­in the fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive glob­al econ­o­my.

Nev­er­the­less, the re­gion’s prox­im­i­ty to North Amer­i­ca, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Unit­ed States, has de­liv­ered con­sid­er­able ad­van­tages: op­por­tu­ni­ties for mi­gra­tion, ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and med­ical care, the steady flow of bil­lions of repa­tri­at­ed US dol­lars over more than 60 years, and em­ploy­ment prospects. Cana­da has al­so played a sup­port­ive role in the re­gion’s de­vel­op­ment.

A uni­fied Caribbean, both po­lit­i­cal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly, holds sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial. Such in­te­gra­tion would en­able economies of scale, lever­ag­ing a com­bined pop­u­la­tion ex­ceed­ing sev­en mil­lion. The re­gion is rich in nat­ur­al re­sources, in­clud­ing oil and gas, and is recog­nised for its unique foods, agri­cul­ture, mu­sic, sports, cul­ture, art, and a well-ed­u­cat­ed and high­ly skilled di­as­po­ra. Con­ve­nient ac­cess to North Amer­i­can mar­kets, cou­pled with shared his­to­ries, cul­tures, and a col­lec­tive pas­sion for reg­gae, ca­lyp­so, so­ca, and car­ni­val, un­der­score the ben­e­fits of uni­ty—both with­in the re­gion and in its en­gage­ment with the wider world.

De­spite the re­gion’s many strengths, it con­tin­ues to be be­set by il­le­gal drug traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. For the first time, Bar­ba­dos is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an in­crease in gun vi­o­lence and as­so­ci­at­ed mur­ders. This is com­pound­ed by eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion and de­mo­graph­ic de­cline, with shrink­ing pop­u­la­tions deep­en­ing the cri­sis. The rise in gang vi­o­lence, high un­em­ploy­ment, and es­ca­lat­ing crime rates prompt dif­fi­cult ques­tions about the so-called “zone of peace”—and who tru­ly ben­e­fits from it. It is pre­dom­i­nant­ly the mid­dle class, the poor, and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties that have suf­fered most from the waves of crime, a trend that in­ten­si­fied in T&T dur­ing the 1990s.

In this frag­ment­ed con­text, Caribbean na­tions have min­i­mal in­flu­ence over the poli­cies of the Unit­ed States or Cana­da. Pres­i­dent Trump, con­sis­tent with his ap­proach, is ex­pect­ed to act in what he per­ceives as the Unit­ed States’ best in­ter­ests. The US re­mains un­easy about Venezue­lan leader Maduro’s ties with Rus­sia and Chi­na in the re­gion—an area long viewed by suc­ces­sive US gov­ern­ments as its “back­yard” for both eco­nom­ic and se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons. This re­al­i­ty calls for a care­ful re­assess­ment of T&T’s for­eign pol­i­cy strat­e­gy.

With re­gard to its face­off with Venezuela, T&T faces three for­eign pol­i­cy op­tions:

Op­tion A: Align with Venezuela

Sup­port­ing Maduro’s Venezuela is a strate­gic dead end. Pres­i­dent Trump has made it clear he will not sup­port any busi­ness deal­ings with Maduro’s gov­ern­ment and wants him re­moved from pow­er. Trump has ex­plic­it­ly stat­ed his re­fusal of Maduro’s of­fers to ex­pel Russ­ian and Chi­nese in­flu­ence or to per­mit oil sales to the US, de­clar­ing Maduro to be “an un­elect­ed leader of a nar­co-ter­ror­ist or­gan­sa­tion.”

Op­tionB: Re­gion­al Neu­tal­i­ty

Opt­ing for neu­tral­i­ty—align­ing with the re­gion but not tak­ing sides—may be seen by Trump as a be­tray­al, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of decades of US sup­port for the Caribbean.

Over the past 60 years, the Unit­ed States has pro­vid­ed var­i­ous forms of aid, in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ment, se­cu­ri­ty, and democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion through ini­tia­tives such as the Al­liance for Progress, US­AID ex­pan­sions to fund in­fra­struc­ture, ed­u­ca­tion, and health projects, HIV/AIDS pro­grammes, and post-dis­as­ter re­lief.

The Caribbean Basin Se­cu­ri­ty Ini­tia­tive, in­tro­duced in 2010, has played a piv­otal role in com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing and sup­port­ing law en­force­ment.

Op­tion (c): Sup­port the Unit­ed States

Align­ing with the US is the prag­mat­ic choice, par­tic­u­lar­ly for T&T’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty. Pres­i­dent Trump sees the West­ern Hemi­sphere as vi­tal to US strate­gic in­ter­ests, re­assert­ing the prin­ci­ples of the “Mon­roe Doc­trine” by de­clar­ing it a US sphere of in­flu­ence. T&T, with its strate­gic lo­ca­tion and ad­vanced in­fra­struc­ture, is well-po­si­tioned to be an im­por­tant al­ly, not on­ly con­tin­u­ing oil sales to the US but al­so at­tract­ing fur­ther eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits as Amer­i­can busi­ness in­ter­ests are en­cour­aged to en­gage with the na­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s prag­mat­ic de­ci­sion to align with the Unit­ed States demon­strates a clear un­der­stand­ing of T&T’s na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties: se­cur­ing its bor­ders, end­ing gang vi­o­lence and drug-re­lat­ed crime, and im­prov­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic out­look to cre­ate a gen­uine “zone of re­al and last­ing peace” for all cit­i­zens. In con­trast, the re­gion’s de­fault po­si­tion of neu­tral­i­ty rep­re­sents lit­tle more than rhetoric, stem­ming from short-sight­ed lead­er­ship and a lack of ef­fec­tive al­ter­na­tives for achiev­ing true peace and pros­per­i­ty. Ul­ti­mate­ly, such a stance is un­like­ly to de­liv­er long-term progress or main­tain even the il­lu­sion of “peace.”