The newspaper headline announced, “tensions loom as Caricom leaders meet”. But the meeting heeded the warning of its chairman St Lucian Prime Minister Philip J Pierre that “history will never forgive us for failing to create a stronger, fairer and more united Caribbean Community.” At the end of the 51st Heads of Government Conference last week in Gros Islet, St Lucia, there was unity, solidarity and purpose in the integration movement. “Renewal”, the theme of the conference, was being fulfilled.
And expansion.
Caricom formally welcomed Martinique and French Guiana as its newest associate members following approval by the French National Assembly. Two years earlier, Curaçao had similarly joined after approbation by the government of the Netherlands.
It speaks well of the regional body when countries want to join its ranks. Caricom is one of the world’s most enduring integration processes, the oldest in the developing world.
With Martinique and French Guiana, the strategic bridge between the Caribbean and Europe is strengthened. We already have five British Overseas Territories as Associate Members—Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos. Curacao is Dutch and Martinique and French Guiana will now establish the French connection.
The strengthened relations with France and the Netherlands provides Caricom with an excellent opportunity to deepen ties with the European Union (EU), an economic powerhouse with 27 member states in a single market of over 440 million people, the second-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP. This could bring several significant benefits for the region including economic development through wider access to European markets and enhanced regional tourism; and cooperation in health care, education, security, and crisis management among several other areas.
New or strengthened engagements are particularly important in a world where geopolitical stresses are producing new alignments and from which Caricom can benefit. For example, the European Union and India, another Caricom friend, recently announced a trade agreement between the world’s largest economic bloc and the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
“The mother of all trade deals,” said a jubilant President of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen, a free-trade zone of two billion people.
“The biggest free-trade agreement by India so far,” affecting one-third of all global trade, said India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Caricom must be alert to opportunity from this development. It is connected to both partners. As I recently pointed out, India and Caricom have already held two summits, the second deemed historic in Guyana in 2024 when PM Modi advanced closer cooperation through a seven-pillar framework: capacity building; agriculture and food security; renewable energy and climate change; innovation and technology; ocean economy and maritime security; and medicines and healthcare. In all these areas, India is making its vast experience and technological development available to Caricom countries. Elsewhere in Asia, Caricom has high-level relations with China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
And we have been deepening relations with the African continent, strengthening the historic ties between the two regions.
Two summits have already been held with the countries of the African Union “to strengthen unity, deepen integration, and jointly pursue reparations and reparatory justice through a comprehensive transcontinental partnership framework”. The effort focuses on political, economic, social, and cultural collaboration, advancing trade, investment, innovation, youth engagement, and shared development.
On the economic front, Caricom is an integral part of the Africa/Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum (ACTIF) which, in close collaboration with the Afreximbank, has already unlocked billions in development financing for several Caribbean economies.
This is “laying the foundations for a resilient transatlantic economic corridor to drive inclusive growth and sustainable development on both sides; creating a platform for rewriting the future of Africa-Caribbean economic relations.”
Then there is our own hemisphere where Caricom maintains strong ties with the world’s super-power, the United States of America. Canada is another long-standing Caricom friend now reaching out and forming new alliances, moving to “construct a middle-power sphere of trade and deep bonds” says PM Mark Carney. He has visited India, Australia and Japan, developing wide-ranging co-operation including economic and defence relations with these countries.
“This is Canada’s defence and industrial strategy in action,” says Carney, “reinforcing Canada’s position as a global leader.”
And we have the Canada-Caricom Strategic Partnership launched in October 2023 at a Leaders’ Summit in Ottawa, for formal, high-level collaboration aimed at advancing shared priorities in economic development, security, climate resilience and social inclusion.
Further in our hemisphere, Caricom has Free Trade Agreements with Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, initiated in the nineties, providing for free trade or preferential access for a wide range of goods into both markets that together comprise 17 million people.
We also we have the Caricom-Colombia Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (TECA) formed in 1994 and updated in 2025 to facilitate preferential trade, tariff reductions, and economic cooperation; as well as the Caricom-Brazil Joint Commission to deepen collaboration and foster mutual development between Caricom member states and Brazil.
The above is a snapshot of Caricom’s global relations where, with teeming new alignments, opportunities abound for regional development. Now renewed in unity and purpose, Caricom is well-positioned to take advantage of these developments.
