As he pass­es the ba­ton of CARI­COM Chair­man­ship, Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter An­drew Hol­ness has called on Caribbean na­tions to act with clar­i­ty and co­he­sion amid a rapid­ly shift­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment.

He said CARI­COM’s cred­i­bil­i­ty rests on man­ag­ing dif­fer­ences through diplo­ma­cy rather than di­vi­sion, and co­op­er­a­tion rather than con­fronta­tion, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing times of un­cer­tain­ty.

“In mo­ments of un­cer­tain­ty, those com­mit­ments will re­main es­sen­tial to safe­guard­ing the peace, de­vel­op­ment, and in­de­pen­dence of Mem­ber States,” PM Hol­ness said.

He not­ed:

“At this mo­ment in our his­to­ry, the Caribbean must now nav­i­gate a rapid­ly shift­ing geopo­lit­i­cal land­scape. The cur­rent in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment re­quires our Re­gion to act with clar­i­ty, co­he­sion, and strate­gic dis­ci­pline. As glob­al ten­sions in­ten­si­fy and ex­ter­nal geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­sect with our in­ter­ests — af­fect­ing our economies, our se­cu­ri­ty, and our diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships — we must en­sure, as best as pos­si­ble, that our re­spons­es are guid­ed by our shared prin­ci­ples: re­spect for sov­er­eign­ty, ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law, peace­ful en­gage­ment, and the res­o­lu­tion of dif­fer­ences through di­a­logue and mu­tu­al re­spect.”

HIs re­marks come as re­gion­al ten­sions have been high­light­ed by dis­agree­ments over CARI­COM’s po­si­tion on Venezuela and re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States, in­clud­ing state­ments by T&T’s Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in which she crit­i­cised the bloc for its stance on the Maduro gov­ern­ment, call­ing CARI­COM an "un­re­li­able part­ner."

How­ev­er, the Ja­maica PM nev­er men­tioned Venezuela or PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar in his state­ment.

Re­flect­ing on his tenure, PM Hol­ness high­light­ed CARI­COM’s ef­forts over the past year, in­clud­ing co­or­di­nat­ed ad­vo­ca­cy in in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rums such as the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, the G20 Lead­ers’ Sum­mit, and the CELAC–EU Sum­mit; sup­port for Haiti through the UN-backed Gang Sup­pres­sion Force; and ad­vanc­ing in­te­gra­tion mea­sures such as the free move­ment of per­sons be­tween Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines. He al­so point­ed to the ex­tra­or­di­nary re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion in re­sponse to Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa, which dev­as­tat­ed parts of the Caribbean ear­li­er this year.

"The ex­tra­or­di­nary out­pour­ing of sup­port at the re­gion­al, in­ter­na­tion­al, and in­di­vid­ual lev­els af­firmed a sim­ple truth of our Com­mu­ni­ty: as mem­bers of the Caribbean fam­i­ly, we are nev­er alone," he said.

As he hand­ed over the Chair­man­ship, PM Hol­ness ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the strength and re­silience of CARI­COM, say­ing he looked for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to serve the re­gion along­side col­leagues in the Bu­reau, and wished cit­i­zens a safe and pros­per­ous 2026.