Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has warned that T&T may be in vi­o­la­tion of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas if its re­cent in­crease in im­port du­ties on cer­tain Cari­com-made goods goes be­yond health-re­lat­ed rea­sons.

Browne said while high­er tar­iffs could be ac­cept­able for pro­tect­ing pub­lic health, any broad­er ap­pli­ca­tion could un­der­mine re­gion­al trade com­mit­ments and dam­age T&T’s rep­u­ta­tion as the “su­per­mar­ket of the Caribbean.”

His com­ments fol­lowed T&T’s de­ci­sion last week to raise im­port du­ties by 100 per cent on Cari­com-pro­duced malt bev­er­ages, beer, rum, cig­a­rettes, and to­bac­co. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh said the mea­sure was part­ly in re­sponse to com­plaints from lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers that they were be­ing placed at a com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tage and al­so cit­ed the health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with those prod­ucts.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Browne said, “We’re all part of the same com­mu­ni­ty, ge­og­ra­phy, and his­to­ry, and we have to pre­serve those re­la­tions.”

He added that he would re­view the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas to de­ter­mine whether T&T’s tar­iff in­creas­es breached its pro­vi­sions on the free move­ment of goods with­in Cari­com.

“From syn­tax, one may find the in­crease nec­es­sary,” Browne said. “But if it goes be­yond that, it will be a vi­o­la­tion of the Treaty, and T&T would not want to see the ero­sion of its sta­tus as the su­per­mar­ket of the re­gion.”

Browne not­ed that the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) could source cheap­er goods from oth­er ter­ri­to­ries un­der the Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff, warn­ing that T&T must tread care­ful­ly to avoid weak­en­ing the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME).

He said he could un­der­stand if the in­creas­es were linked to re­duc­ing con­sump­tion of prod­ucts harm­ful to health, but any oth­er mo­tive could raise ques­tions about T&T’s treaty oblig­a­tions.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the right to safe­guard pub­lic health, Browne made a di­rect ap­peal to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, re­fer­ring to her as “my dear friend Kam­la,” and urg­ing her to pri­ori­tise re­gion­al uni­ty.

“I just hope she un­der­stands that if we are part of the same com­mu­ni­ty, ge­og­ra­phy, and his­to­ry, there’s a need to strength­en the in­te­gra­tion move­ment, not frac­ture it—es­pe­cial­ly with the geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape as it is and cer­tain sit­u­a­tions in the south­ern Caribbean that could desta­bilise the re­gion,” he said.

Browne al­so warned against al­low­ing for­eign pow­ers to di­vide the re­gion.

“Your Prime Min­is­ter would be well ad­vised to be more syn­op­tic and do all in her pow­er to pro­tect Caribbean uni­ty. Don’t throw out the ba­by with the bath­wa­ter,” he said.

Last week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Cari­com of be­tray­ing T&T and an­nounced plans to re­align the coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy to­ward na­tions out­side the re­gion. While she ruled out with­draw­ing from Cari­com, she said her ad­min­is­tra­tion no longer viewed the bloc as a “re­li­able part­ner.”

Dou­glas: T&T and Cari­com still one

Mean­while, Dr Den­zil Dou­glas, chair­man of Cari­com’s Coun­cil for For­eign and Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tions (COF­COR) and for­mer prime min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis, down­played con­cerns of a rift be­tween T&T and the re­gion­al body.

Speak­ing on Sun­day, Dou­glas said that de­spite ten­sions, “T&T is part of Cari­com and an in­te­gral part of Cari­com at that.”

He added, “The sit­u­a­tion may seem un­cer­tain, but we are cer­tain that T&T and Cari­com are still one. Cari­com doesn’t have a prob­lem with T&T, and the two re­main in­sep­a­ra­ble.”

Dou­glas made the com­ments in re­sponse to ques­tions about the re­gion’s call to re­main a “zone of peace” amid T&T’s sup­port for the US-led an­ti-drug car­tel mis­sion, which has so far de­stroyed 15 ves­sels and re­sult­ed in 64 deaths.